GIFT  OF 


(^A^^^Aycte.^^ 


Louis  Clark  Vanuxem  Foundation 


LECTURES 

DELIVERED  IN  CONNECTION  WITH  THE 

DEDICATION  OF  THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE 

OF  PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY 

IN  OCTOBER,  1913 


EMILE  BOUTROUX 
ALOIS  RIEHL 
A.  D.  GODLEY 
ARTHUR  SHIPLEY 


PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

PRINCETON 

LONDON:    HUMPHREY  MILFORD 

OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1914    . 


Published  October,  1914 


# 


7^ 


I 

SCIENCE    AND    CULTURE 

Emile   Boutroux 

Honorary   Professor  in  the   Faculty  of  the 

University    of    Paris 

Director  of  the  Fondation  Thiers 

Member    of    the    French    Academy 

II 

THE    VOCATION    OF    PHILOSOPHY    AT    THE 

PRESENT  DAY 

Alois   Riehl 

Professor  of  Philosophy 

and  recently  Rector  in  the  University  of  Berlin 

III 

THE     PRESENT     POSITION     OF     CLASSICAL 

STUDIES   IN   ENGLAND 

A.   D.   GoDLEY,   M.A. 

Fellow  of  Magdalen  College 

Public  Orator  in  the  University  of  Oxford 

IV 

THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE   IN   THE   SEVEN- 
TEENTH CENTURY 
Arthur  Shipley,  F.R.S.,  D.Sc. 
Professor   of   Zoology 
Master  of  Christ's  College,  University  of  Cambridge 


294^03 


NOTE 

The  four  lectures  here  printed  were  deliv- 
ered in  the  East  Room  of  McCosh  Hall  on  the 
two  days  preceding  the  dedication  of  the  Grad- 
uate College  of  Princeton  University  on  Octo- 
ber 22,  1914.  The  lectures  of  Professor 
Boutroux  and  Professor  Riehl  have  been  trans- 
lated for  this  volume. 


SCIENCE  AND  CULTURE 


SCIENCE    AND    CULTURE 

By  Emile  Boutroux 


Science  and  Culture — few  words  are  heard 
more  often  in  our  day  and  few  words  cause 
so  many  controversies  and  discussions  on  all 
sides. 

\       Does  culture — to  use  the  word  in  its  exact 
sense — arise  naturally  from  the  progress  of 

\  science  or  has  culture  her  own  conditions,  her 
own  laws,  her  progress  or  her  decadence  in  a 

.    domain    distinct    from    the    true    domain    of 
science? 

More  than  this,  might  it  not  be  maintained 
that  science  in  the  state  she  has  reached  during 
the  ages,  far  from  being  favorable  to  culture 

,     in  the  classic  sense  of  the  word,  rather  tends, 
by  the  growing  importance  she  gives  to  spe- 

3 


4  EMIl.EBOUTROUX 

cialization,  to  substitute  for  culture  a  mechani- 
cal training  of  an  entirely  different  sort? 

These  questions  suggest  themselves  today  to 
all  reflecting  minds  and  it  seems  particularly 
opportune  to  discuss  them  here,  in  this  college, 
which  has  set  before  itself  the  ideal  of  being 
at  the  same  time  a  laboratory  of  pure  science 
and  a  school  of  high  culture. 

We  must  not  be  surprised  to  find  ourselves 
confronted  by  this  problem:  it  does  not  date 
from  yesterday.  Humanity  in  the  course  of 
its  history  has  already,  at  many  recurring  in- 
tervals, passed  through  crises  analogous  to  the 
situation  we  have  before  our  eyes. 

Long  ago  among  the  ancient  Greeks,  the 
appearance  of  the  Sophists  meant  a  conflict 
of  this  kind.  Some  bold  investigators  sketched 
the  foundations  for  a  science  of  nature  to  be 
constructed  not  as  before,  say  in  the  cosmogonic 
doctrines,  from  the  standpoint  of  man,  his  be- 
liefs and  his  desires,  but  from  the  standpoint 
of  nature  itself.  They  were  called  physio- 
^  logues.  They  tried  to  find  out  whether  the 
substance  of  things  is  one  or  multiple,  changing 
or  immutable,  formed  of  visible  elements  or  of 


SCIENCE   AND  CULTURE  5 

numbers,  or  of  atoms,  or  of  particles  infinitely 
tiny  but  qualitatively  different;  whether  the 
action  of  an  entirely  mechanical  necessity  is 
enough  to  account  for  the  order  and  the  mar- 
vellous diversity  of  the  phenomena  of  the  uni- 
verse. In  magnificent  systems,  they  displayed, 
as  in  a  vast  panorama,  the  history  of  the  world, 
its  orgin,  its  course,  its  destiny. 

But  what  became  of  man  in  the  midst  of  this 
universe?  His  virtues,  his  thoughts,  his  arts, 
his  institutions,  his  life — had  they  any  reality, 
any  value?  Socrates,  crowning  by  a  positive 
doctrine  the  critical  work  of  the  Sophists,  was 
not  content  with  protesting  against  a  science 
which  ignored  or  absorbed  man;  he  put  in  the 
foreground  human  duties  and  the  knowledge 
and  culture  of  self.  Then  Plato  and  Aristotle 
found  a  way  to  make  human  virtue  itself  the 
point  of  departure  for  all  wisdom,  and  the 
crisis  precipitated  by  the  Sophists  was  resolved 
into  a  harmony  arising  from  the  subordination 
of  the  science  of  nature  to  ideal  culture. 

A  second  crisis  arose,  at  the  end  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  when  scholasticism  seemed  to 
have  established  to  all  eternity  a  science  ade- 


:£mile  boutroux 


quate  for  all  things  human  and  divine,  a 
science  before  which  man,  as  man,  could  not 
pretend  to  take  anj^  attitude  but  one  of  obed- 
ient submission — complete  and  absolute. 

Once  more  man  protested.  Every  one 
knows  with  what  eloquence  that  protest  is  ex- 
pressed by  Goethe's  Faust: 

Was  man  nicht  weiss,  das  eben  brauchte  man, 
Und  was  man  weiss,  kann  man  nicht  brauchen. 

Weh!  Stech'  ich  in  dem  Kerker  noch? 

Fliehl  Auf!  Hinaus  in  's  weite  land! 

The  works  of  a  Rabelais  or  a  Montaigne  are 
nothing  else  but  a  continual  revindication  of 
the  rights  of  culture  and  of  life,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  tyranny  of  abstract  science, 
y  "Knowledge  without  conscience,"  said  Rabe- 
lais, "is  simply  the  ruin  of  the  soul."  And 
Montaigne:  "Science  without  judgment  is  the 
destruction  of  the  mind." 

Finally,  with  Descartes,  the  principle  of  cul- 
ture triumphed,  and  triumphed,  moreover,  in 
such  a  way  as,  at  the  same  time,  to  maintain 


SCIENCE  vVND  CULTURE  7 

and  strengthen  the  rights  of  science  itself.  For 
Descartes  insisted  that  human  culture  consis- 
ted essentially  in  the  culture  of  the  reason, 
which  finds  its  satisfaction  in  science,  as  well 
as  in  those  moral  truths  which  assure  the  dig- 
nity of  man  and  direct  him  towards  God.  The 
treatise  entitled  Regulae  ad  Directionem  In- 
genii  opens  with  this  sentence; 

''Studiorum  finis  esse  debet  ingenii  directio 
ad  solida  et  vera  de  iis  omnibus  quae  occurrunt 
proferenda  judicia.  (The  aim  of  study 
should  be  the  mind's  culture,  enabling  us  to 
utter  well  founded  and  true  judgments  about 
anything  that  may  occur.) 

The  Scholastic  logic  has  been  the  art  of 
reasoning;  the  Cartesian  logic  was  the  art  of 
thinking. 

Very  soon,  nevertheless,  scientism  and  in- 
tellectualism  dominated  men's  minds  so  com- 
pletely that  they  threatened  to  destroy  feeling 
and  spontaneity.  That  was  the  time  which 
is  called  the  Epoch  of  the  Enlightenment, 
whose  masterpiece  is  the  "Encyclopedic." 

Then  another  crisis  arose  with  Rousseau 
for  herald.     With  a  fire  and  an  enthusiasm 


8  KMII.E   BOUTROUX 

whose  influence  the  world  still  feels,  he  exalted 
the  virtue  and  the  happiness  which  spring 
from  a  naive  confidence  in  the  simple  sugges- 
tions of  the  heart  and  of  nature  and  claimed 
for  these  the  superiority  over  the  intelligence 
working  apart  from  the  soul  and  from  the 
sense  of  life.  Not  that  he  ended  with  the  idea 
of  proscribing  the  sciences  and  the  intelligence. 
He  was  not  long  in  recognizing  that,  once 
lighted,  the  torch  of  science  can  never  go  out. 
And  so,  although  he  rejects  the  idea  of  science 
as  the  master  of  life  he  accepts  the  idea  of 
science  as  the  servant  of  life:  the  sciences  and 
the  intelligence  have  a  wholesome  and  neces- 
sary part  in  culture  if  they  are  directed  by  the 
heart  restored  to  its  primitive  rectitude. 

In  this  way,  at  many  recurrent  intervals 
during  the  course  of  human  evolution,  the 
genius  of  culture  has  set  itself  face  to  face 
with  the  genius  of  science  threatening  to  take 
possession  of  the  entire  man,  and  has  tri- 
umphed over  the  tyrannical  pretensions  of 
its  rival,  without  denying  to  science,  kept  in 
its  proper  place,  the  right  to  its  legitimate 
development. 


SCIENCE  AND  CULTURE  9 

We  are  now  passing  through  a  new  crisis. 
Once  more  science  proclaims:  "All  reality 
belongs  to  me!  The  entire  personality  of 
man  belongs  to  me!"  And  once  more  man 
feels  astonished  and  asks:  "Is  it  then  definitely 
proved  that  my  personality  is  nothing  but  a 
vain  show?  That  I  am  really  a  thing  like 
other  things  and  that  human  culture,  like  the 
cultivation  of  trees  or  plants,  ought  to  be 
reduced  to  the  passive  application  of  laws  for- 
mulated by  the  theoretical  sciences?" 

The  principle  of  culture  up  to  the  present 
time  has  triumphed  over  the  assaults  which 
have  been  made  upon  it.  Is  it  to  be  expected 
that  the  result  of  the  present  crisis  will  be  the 
same? 

II 

It  might  seem  enough  for  the  resolution  of 
this  question  to  appeal  to  that  law  of  rhythm 
and  alternation  which  in  a  general  way  gov- 
erns the  manifestations  of  life.  Humanity 
seems  to  be  walking  like  a  drunken  man,  now 
escaping  a  fall  to  the  left  hand  by  an  exag- 
gerated movement  to  the  right,  now  throwing 


10  EMILE  BOUTROUX 

himself  back,  by  a  movement  just  as  exag- 
gerated, from  right  to  left,  and  so  on  ad  in- 
finitum. Science — culture,  culture — science 
would  thus  become  like  the  two  extremes  of  the 
oscillation  of  a  pendulum  and  the  very  pre- 
tension of  the  science  of  the  present  day  to 
a  universal  hegemony  would  be  nothing  but 
the  prelude  to  the  compensating  triumph  of 
culture. 

That  way  of  resolving  the  problem  a  priori, 
is  too  simple.  There  is  nothing  to  prove  that 
humanity  must  repeat  itself  to  all  eternity, 
and  it  may  very  well  be  that,  at  a  certain 
moment  of  its  development,  the  oscillatory 
movement  may  give  place  to  a  definite  prog- 
ress in  one  of  the  two  directions,  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  the  other. 

Science,  the  champions  of  "Scientism"  may 
say,  has,  in  our  day  especially,  acquired  new 
characteristics  and  it  is  not  proper  to  judge 
of  its  destiny  in  the  future  by  the  vicissitudes 
of  a  past  dead  beyond  hope  of  resurrection. 
Human  affairs  move  not  only  by  alternation 
but  also  by  evolution  proper  and  all  evolu- 
tion is  irreversible. 


SCIENCE   AND  CULTURE  11 

The  physics  of  Herachtes,  of  Empedocles, 
of  Anaxagoras  could  easily  bow  in  reverence 
before  a  philosophy  of  culture,  because  it  was 
itself,  to  some  extent,  an  art  as  well  as  a 
science.  The  object  of  the  researches  of 
Heraclites  is,  according  to  his  own  statement, 
an  invisible  harmony  more  beautiful  than  the 
visible  one:    ap^ovir)  a^avr]<;  ^aveprjf;  ^peirrodv. 

The  scholasticism  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
based  on  authority,  could  not  maintain  its 
position  before  a  criticism  absolutely  resolute 
to  submit  without  pity  all  human  beliefs  to 
discussion  by  the  reason  and  to  the  test  of 
nature. 

And  however  extended  the  domain  of  sci- 
ence and  of  intellectual  systematization  may 
have  been  in  the  eighteenth  century,  it  was 
very  far  from  embracing  all  parts  of  reality. 
Science  lacked  instruments  and  appropriate 
methods  for  extending  the  reign  of  its  laws 
beyond  physical  nature  to  life  and  the  human 
soul.  That  is  why  feeling,  making  head  once 
more,  was  able  to  stop  the  progress  of  its 
adversary  and,  in  a  short  while,  to  display 


U  KMILE   BOUTROUX 

itself  triumphantly  and  without  restraint  in 
the  art  and  literature  of  Romanticism. 

Conditions  are  not  the  same  today;  and 
there  is  really  place  for  the  question  whether 
the  pretensions  of  science,  so  often  renewed, 
to  govern  by  her  sole  power,  not  only  all  hu- 
man knowledge  but  all  human  life,  are  not  on 
the  verge  of  a  final  triumph.  The  general 
evolution  of  humanity  could  in  that  case  be 
formulated  thus:  from  man  to  things,  from 
feeling  to  reason,  from  art  to  science. 

The  science  of  today,  the  apostles  of  "Sci- 
entism"  say,  is  aware  of  possessing  certitude. 
The  science  of  today  rests  on  facts  and  logic 
and  the  history  of  human  thought,  as  well  as 
the  analysis  of  human  knowledge,  has  demon- 
strated that  the  observation  of  facts  combined 
with  logic  is  the  only  means  of  reaching  that 
complete  agreement  between  different  minds, 
apart  from  which  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
true  certitude. 

That  is  not  all.  Claiming  for  its  domain 
all  objects  the  knowledge  of  which  can  be 
gained  by  experience  and  logic,  science  has 
the  right  not  only  to  claim  the  possession  of 


SCIENCE   AND  CULTURE  13 

certitude  but  also  to  deny  that  there  is  cer- 
titude anywhere  else  but  in  science. 

Doubtless,  according  to  the  opinion  of  the 
average  man,  there  is  a  certitude  based  on 
feeling  alone  and  the  energy  which  character- 
izes it  is  no  less  than  that  which  is  inherent  to 
scientific  certitude. 

But  science  sees  in  it  nothing  but  a  condi- 
tion of  soul  entirely  subjective,  comparable 
to  dream  or  desire.  The  word  belief  or  fancy 
would  be  better  adapted  to  describe  it.  Far 
from  its  being  the  case  that  truth  depends  on 
certitude,  we  must  rather  say  that  certitude 
depends  on  truth.  Let  nobody,  then,  pretend 
to  know,  where  science  confesses  ignorance. 
Nothing  is  knowahlp  for  inqn  hut  whqt  cqn  he 
scientifically  known. 

Consider  also,  the  scientists  urge,  that,  since 
Galileo  and  Descartes,  the  whole  domain  of 
being  has  come  little  by  little  under  the  con- 
trol of  science.  Doubtless  science  is  not  sat- 
isfied unless  she  measures  and  calculates  and 
many  facts  taken  by  themselves  cannot  be 
measured;  for  instance,  all  vital  phenomena; 
and  psychological  phenomena  are  even  more 


14  EMILE   BOUTROUX 

intractable.  But  science  has  in  that  respect 
invented  the  method  of  indirect  measure  or 
equivalent.  For  phenomena  immeasurable  in 
themselves  she  substitues  phenomena  directly 
measurable,  connected  with  the  first  by  an 
exact  law.  Thus,  for  example,  heat  is  meas- 
ured,  not  in  itself,  but  by  the  height  of  a  col- 
umn of  mercury.  Thanks  to  the  generaliza- 
tion of  this  method,  there  is  no  phenomenon 
which  cannot  theoretically  be  submitted  to 
scientific  investigation,  and  Berthelot  was  able 
to  say  from  the  standpoint  of  rights  if  not  of 
facts :    "Nature  has  for  us  no  more  mysteries." 

We  are  then  told  not  only  that  there  is  no 
certitude  outside  of  science,  but  that  the  juris- 
diction of  science  includes  everything.  How 
then  can  there  be  a  culture  outside  of  science? 

You  may  allege  the  irreducibility  of  feel- 
ing, the  opposition  we  perceive  each  day  be- 
tween the  intelligence  and  the  heart,  science 
and  life.  But  the  celebrated  English  philos- 
opher, Leslie  Stephen,  has  given  for  this  fact 
an  explanation  which  very  much  diminishes 
its  importance.  "The  imagination,"  he  says, 
"lags  behind  the  reason."     Imagination,  feel- 


SCIENCE   AND  CULTURE  15 

ing,  will,  do  not  follow  the  reason  except  at 
a  distance  and,  in  a  way,  in  spite  of  them- 
selves. Yet  little  by  little  they  must  yield  to 
the  action  of  reason,  for  this  latter  is  intangi- 
ble and  irresistibly  increases  steadily  in  power, 
while  feeling,  in  spite  of  its  repugnance,  can 
always  be  weakened  and  naturally  grows 
weaker  with  time.  Drops  of  water  falling 
without  ceasing  finally  wear  away  the  solid 
rock. 

This  solution  of  the  conflict  is  certainly  the 
one  a  man  of  intelligence  ought  to  hope  for 
and  the  one  he  ought  to  work  to  bring  about. 

Besides,  adds  the  scientist,  science  as  she 
learns  more  perfectly  her  own  nature  and 
power  becomes  more  sufficient  for  education 
and  culture. 

In  the  first  place,  she  teaches  better  than 
anyone  the  worship  of  truth,  and  what  is  more 
noble,  more  sure,  more  just  than  to  consecrate 
oneself  to  that  sublime  religion?  To  seek  for 
truth — that  is  not  only  to  realize  in  oneself, 
in  all  its  purity,  intellectual  virtue;  it  is — by 
the  subordination  of  material  interests  to  an 
ideal   interest,   by   the    friendship   which   the 


16  EMILE   BOUTROUX 

seeker  naturally  forms  with  those  who  pursue 
the  solution  of  the  same  problems,  by  the  joy 
which  one  feels  in  possessing  a  blessing  as  real 
as  it  is  sublime — to  develop  in  oneself,  in  the 
most  certain  way,  moral  virtue. 

By  general  consent,  scientific  study  and  re- 
search are  not  only  the  acquisition  of  knowl- 
edge— an  external  enriching  of  the  mind ;  they 
are  literally  a  culture.  They  may  indeed  be 
called  the  necessary  and  sufficient  culture. 
There  is,  indeed,  no  essential  faculty  of  the 
human  soul  which  science  does  not  develop  and 
direct  in  the  best  way.  And,  so  far  as  those 
sides  of  our  nature  are  concerned  which  require 
for  their  development  the  rejection  of  scientific 
influence,  they  should  be  considered — not  as 
permanent  characteristics  of  man,  but  as  sur- 
vivals of  a  past  condition  which  it  is  highly 
desirable  to  obliterate. 

Such  seems  to  be  today,  in  the  words  of 
some  of  her  representatives,  the  ambition  of 
science.  If  that  pretension  is  well  founded, 
the  ancient  conflict  of  science  and  culture  is 
at  last  ended.  Science  has  definitely  con- 
quered and  no  counter  triumph  of  culture  as 


SCIENCE  AND  CULTURE  17 

irreducible  to  science,  is  henceforth  possible. 
Science  is  herself  theory  and  practice — truth 
and  action — the  abstract  and  the  concrete — 
knowledge  and  life. 

Ill 

Before  asking  ourselves  if  that  conception 
is  true  or  false,  it  might  perhaps  be  interesting 
to  try  to  form  a  picture  of  what  human  life 
would  become  if  it  were  actually  governed  in 
all  its  parts  by  science  and  only  by  science. 
It  is  one  thing  indeed  to  sing  hosannas  in 
honor  of  science;  it  is  another  thing  to  see 
clearly  all  the  consequences  which  the  exclu- 
sive sovereignty  of  science  would  bring  to 
pass.  If  it  appears  that  these  consequences 
would  be  enormous  and  paradoxical,  it  by  no 
means  follows  that  the  principle  is  false,  be- 
cause the  mission  of  truth  is  not  to  be  agree- 
able to  us,  yet  such  an  outcome  of  the  principle 
will  be  an  additional  reason  for  not  accepting 
it  without  a  close  examination. 

Auguste  Comte  loved  to  repeat  that  to  sur- 
render human  life  to  the  men  of  learning  and 


18  ]fiMILE   BOUTROUX 


nothing  else,  would  be  to  break  all  the  moral 
and  social  bonds  which  exist  at  the  present 
moment  among  men  and  to  divide  humanity 

>yinto  groups  of  specialists,  strangers  or  even 
enemies  to  one  another.  Science  knows  no 
other  social  relations  except  those  which  re- 

^  suit  from  the  division  of  labor.  An  entirely 
external  coordination  would,  then,  replace 
that  community  of  feeling,  thought  and  exis- 
tence which  characterizes  our  existing  society, 
born  of  the  family  and  dominated  by  the  idea 
and  the  feeling  of  humanity.  And,  warming 
to  the  discussion,  the  founder  of  positivism 
plunged  with  growing  passion  into  invective 

^  against  the  professional  vanity,  the  onesided 

\  spirit,  the  absence  of  mutual  understanding, 

\  the  lack  of  practical  sense  which  he  attributed 
to  men  of  learning  who  are  nothing  else.  He 
particularly  disliked  mathematicians  or  mathe- 
matically-minded men,  and  held  them  respon- 
sible for  all  the  evils  which  afflict  society — 

"^^  especially  for  the  French  revolution,  that 
abomination  of  desolation. 

—  Auguste  Comte  was  a  little  reckless  in  his 
use  of  anathemas,  and  the  men  of  learning 


SCIENCE  AND  CULTURE  19 

punished  him  by  insinuating  that  his  brain 
probably  never  quite  recovered  from  the  de- 
rangement which  twice  attacked  it. 

Without  sharing  the  fury  of  Auguste 
Comte,  one  can  notice  that  scientific  work 
presupposes  more  and  more  an  extreme  spe- 
ciahzation,  and  that,  in  conformity  with  this 
requirement,  the  system  of  faculties  distinct 
and  autonomous  enjoj^s,  in  our  universities, 
a  growing  favor.  In  perfect  calmness  we 
can  observe  that,  in  our  society  greedy  for 
progress  and  above  all  for  scientific  progress, 
the  certificates  for  elementary  studies  are, 
more  and  more,  the  only  ones  which  still  keep 
a  general  character.  Have  we  not  therefore 
the  right  to  suppose  that,  if  men  were  guided 
by  science  alone,  they  would  be  comparable, 
looking  at  society  as  a  whole,  to  workmen  in 
^  factories,  each  one  shut  up  to  the  special  task 
which  has  been  assigned  to  him. 

But,  you  will  say,  does  not  man  remain  with 
his  social  sense,  with  his  love  for  the  traditions 
of  his  country  and  his  race,  with  his  ideal  as- 
pirations which  the  role  of  a  wheel  in  a  ma- 
chine can  never  satisfy?     Are  not  these  real 


20  EMII.E   BOUTROUX 

data  which  a  science  resolutely  experimental 
could  not  fail  to  recognize  and  respect? 

These  realities,  it  is  to  be  noticed,  gain  their 
moral  and  social  meaning  from  the  subjective 
elements  which  they  include.  But  the  func- 
tion of  science  is  to  eliminate  the  subjective 
and  to  resolve  it  into  the  objective.  She 
would  not,  therefore,  know  how  to  attribute 
the  slightest  value  to  our  aesthetic,  moral  or 
religious  ideas  as  we  are  conscious  of  them. 
If,  at  the  present  moment,  science  does  not 
see  the  way  to  resolve  them  completely  into 
objective  elements,  she  thinks  such  a  resolu- 
tion possible,  and  the  attachment  of  man  to 
those  idols  which  he  has  created  himself  can 
not  be,  for  her  eyes,  anything  but  superstition, 
routine,  error.  To  sum  up — the  task  which 
science  sets  before  herself,  the  task  which  she 
thinks  it  both  a  right  and  a  duty  to  consider 
realizable,  is  to  dissolve  and  to  reduce  to  an 
infinite  number  of  units  of  energy  entirely 
\  physical  everything  which  constitutes  the  es- 
sence of  man.  Her  manner  of  explaining 
man  means  suppressing  him.  When  man  ate 
the  fruit   of  the  tree   of  science,   he   signed. 


SCIENCE  AND  CULTURE  21 

in  a  very  real  sense  his  own  death  warrant. 
If,  some  day,  science  reahzes  her  ambitions, 
man,  deprived  of  eveiything  which  gives  him 
a  reason  for  Hving,  will  either  disappear  or 
will  be  so  changed  as  to  resemble  in  nothing 
what  we  call  man.  This  is  doubtless  an  ideal 
limit  which  practically  does  not  seem  possible 
of  attainment.  But,  if  science  ought  to  be  our 
only  guide,  this  is  the  goal  we  march  towards, 
and  we  ought  to  measure  human  progress  by 
the  extent  to  which  humanity  is  dehumanized. 
Whatever  may  be  the  feelings  which  the 
prospect  of  such  a  destiny  arouses  in  us,  we 
have  nothing  to  do,  if  we  are  reasonable,  ex- 
cept to  accept  it  gracefully.  For,  even  though 
we  rebel,  we  shall  be  none  the  less  forced  to 
bow  to  it,  and  then  we  shall  be  at  the  same 
time  conquered  and  culprits. 

rjv  8e  fJLT)   OeXo), 

one  could  say,  using  the  words  of  the  Stoic 
Cleanthes:      What   dignity  would  man   pre- 

«».—■<•  111^       II— M— »»niii m 

serve  if  he  put  his  pride  above  the  truth? 
But  is  this  the  truth?     Is  science  reallv  des- 


22  :emile  boutroux 

tined  to  absorb  the  whole  man  and  to  reduce 
him  to  the  dust  of  atoms? 

That  hypothesis  arises  from  a  misunder- 
standing which  Descartes  denounced  long  ago. 
It  supposes  a  confusion  between  science  al- 
ready formed  or  made  and  science  which  is  in 
the  making,  or  rather,  a  confusion  between 
science  considered  as  a  thing  in  itself  and 
science  as  it  actually  exists.  If  science  were 
a  thing  in  itself,  ready  made  from  all  eternity 
— if  man  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  discover  it 
as  a  treasure  buried  in  the  ground  is  discover- 
ed, then  it  would  be  true  that  man  does  not 
really  exist  except  in  a  scientific  form — that 
is  to  say,  so  far  as  he  is  a  man,  he  does  not 
exist  at  all.  But  that  so-called  science  in 
itself,  is  nothing  but  a  creation  of  reason, 
imagined  by  metaphysicians  of  the  absolute  or 
by  university  professors  inclined  by  profession 
to  dogmatism.  The  only  science  which  exists 
is  the  science  which  is  being  formed,  the  sci- 
ence which  is  becoming  science — and  that  is 
not  really  a  discovery — it  is  rather  an  inven- 
tion. If  there  is  one  result  which  is  plain 
from  the  deep  study  which,  in  our  day  espe- 


\ 


SCIENCE   AND  CULTURE  23 

cially,  has  been  made  of  the  origin  of  science, 
it  is  this:  the  essential  and  continuous  part 
which  the  original  activity  of  the  mind  has 
played  and  plays,  both  in  the  formation  and 
elaboration  of  scientific  concepts  and  in  es- 
tablishing the  relations  of  phenomena  to  those 
concepts.  I  would  be  glad  to  apply  to  all 
science  the  theory  which  I  have  seen  my  mas- 
ter M.  Michel  Breal  sustain  in  regard  to  lan- 
guage. Against  those  who  assume  to  explain 
the  phenomena  of  language  by  purely  me- 
chanical laws  immanent  in  language  itself,  to 
wit:  by  simple  invariable  connections  of  ele- 
mentary linguistic  phenomena,  Michel  Breal 
sustains  the  proposition  that  the  mind,  for  its 
own  ends  and  by  its  own  activity,  with  its 
capacity  for  trying,  for  groping  its  way,  for 
choice,  for  adaptation,  for  aesthetic  arrange- 
ment, for  improving,  is  the  true  creator  and 
modifier  of  language.  31  ens  agitat  molem: 
Mind  moves  the  whole.  Doubtless  it  would 
be  possible,  to  some  extent,  to  reduce  any 
given  language  to  a  fixed  mechanical  system, 
so  that  its  constitution  could  be  more  easily 
taught  to  students  whose  memory  was  better 


24  EMII.E   BOUTROUX 

than  their  judgment.  But  the  method  of 
teaching  is  not  the  way  of  creation.  The  real 
development  of  language  is  not  intelligible 
without  making  an  appeal  to  the  living  mind 
as  an  essential  factor. 

Novs  oLv  eL7)  TO)v  apx^iv  -  ^  Intelligence  should 
be  considered  a  principle,  says  Aristotle. 
And  the  proud  declaration  of  Descartes 
stands  more  unassailable  than  ever:  Scientiae 
omnes  nihil  aliud  sunt  quarn  humana  sapientia 
[sive  bona  mens^,  quae  semper  una  et  eadem 
manet,  quantumvis  differentihus  subjectis 
applicata:^  All  the  different  sciences  are  but 
human  wisdom  [or  good  sense],  which  always 
remains  the  same,  though  it  may  be  applied 
to  most  different  subjects. 

The  truth  is  that  science  herself,  this  lan- 
guage par  excellence,  refers  us  to  that  living 
spirit — to  that  subjective  principle — which 
she  thought  to  dissolve  into  its  elements  and 
to  eliminate  without  pity.  Not  only  is  it  true 
that  she  was  born  from  thought,  but  it  is  also 
true  that  she  can  never  preserve  her  value  and 

^Aristotle,  Anal,  post.,  s.   f. 
^Descartes,  Reg.  ad  direct,  ing.,  init. 


SCIF.XCR   y\ND   CULTURE  2.5 

her  power  of  improvement  except  by  remain- 
ing substantially  united  to  that  spirit  and  ac- 
tivity. "Separate  words  from  the  mind 
which  expresses  itself  in  them,"  said  Plato, 
"and  then  ask  them  what  they  mean:  they  will 
keep  solemnly  silent,"  ae^ivox^  irdw  criya  .  Sci- 
ence can  no  more  do  without  spirit  than  the 
colors  produced  by  the  reflection  of  light  can 
exist  without  the  sun. 

But  if  science,  far  from  absorbing  spirit  and 
reducing  it  to  the  mechanism  she  constructs, 
depends  as  a  matter  of  fact  eternally  on  spirit, 
as  the  leaves  and  the  flowers  depend  on  the 
tree,  it  is  of  the  greatest  interest  to  science 
that  spirit  should  receive  the  culture  which  is 
appropriate,  the  culture  which  best  assures 
the  health,  the  vigor,  the  fecundity  of  spirit. 

That  culture,  however,  of  which  science  is 
at  once  the  aim  and  the  measure — is  it  suffi- 
cient for  our  needs? 

The  scientific  faculty  is  not  the  only  one 
which  is  essential  for  us.  We  find  also  in  our- 
selves other  ruling  faculties:  the  practical,  the 
artistic,  the  religious  faculty. 

If  our  spirit  is  really  in  itself  a  being,  a 


26  P^MILE   BOUTROUX 

principle,  a  power  irreducible  and  original, 
why  would  we  not  develop  all  parts  of  its 
essential  being?  Science  which  presupposes 
spirit  and  lives  in  its  life,  is  herself  interested 
in  a  culture  which  will  make  the  spirit  as  rich 
and  harmonious  as  possible. 

Today,  then,  as  in  the  epoch  of  the  Renais- 
sance, or  in  the  age  of  the  Sophists  and  Socra- 
tes, it  remains  true  that  man  ought  not  to 
lose  himself  in  science,  even  the  largest  and  the 
best  established  science,  but  that  he  ought  to 
recognize  that  he  has  the  right  and  the  duty 
to  cultivate  in  himself  humanity  as  such,  to  be 
truly  a  man  in  the  sense  at  once  the  largest  and 
the  most  specific  of  the  word.  We  can  still 
say  with  Menander: 

'II9  \apUv  iaO^    av6p(t)7ro^j   orav   avSpoiTTO^    f), 
\  What  an  admirable  thing  is  man  when  he  is 
truly  man ! 

IV 

How  shall  we  conceive  and  practice  today 
that  culture  of  man  as  man,  which,  in  spite  of 
all  the  changes  in  society,  and  even  in  spite 
of  the  unheard-of  progress  of  science,  remains 


SCIENCE   AND  CULTURE  27 

the  condition  of  all  progress  and  the  supreme 
goal  to  which  all  our  efforts  ought  to  be 
directed? 

Nothing  is  truer  than  the  affirmation  re- 
peated incessantly  among  us,  about  the  educa- 
tive value  of  the  sciences,  provided  the  nature 
and  the  service  of  science  are  correctly  un- 
derstood. True  science  is  not  a  system  of 
compartments,  built  once  for  all,  where  all  the 
objects  found  in  nature  must  come  by  consent 
or  by  force  to  be  arranged  in  order.  Science 
Y  is  the  very  mind  of  man,  exerting  itself  to  un- 
derstand things  and,  to  succeed  in  that,  as  far 
as  possible  moulding  itself,  accommodating 
itself,  enlarging  itself,  diversifying  itself  in 
order  to  pass  in  its  vision  beneath  the  super- 
ficial and  uniform  aspect  of  beings  and  to  pen- 
etrate to  some  extent  their  infinite  and  subtle 
individuality. 

That  is  why  the  science  which  is  truly  edu- 
cative is  not  the  science  which  assumes  to  be 
complete,  finished  and  infallible  in  its  logical 
simplicity.  It  is  the  science  which  works, 
which  seeks,  feels  its  way,  criticises  itself,  cor- 
rects itself,  considers  itself  always  provisional 


i 


28  EMILE   BOUTROUX 

and  behaves  itself  as  provisional.  The  science 
useful  in  education  is  not  a  science  fixed  in 
rigid  definitions  with  a  view  to  teaching  and 
examinations,  it  is  the  living  science,  grasped 
in  the  very  act  of  making  itself  in  the  labora- 
tories. 

The  first  sort  of  science  is  easily  accepted 
by  professors  and  students  whose  laziness  it 
flatters;  it  favors  dogmatism,  routine,  aprior- 
\  ism,  the  assumption  of  ability  to  judge  all 
things  according  to  exact  and  absolute  rules. 
The  man  who  has  allowed  himself  to  be 
moulded  in  this  way  by  his  scientific  studies, 
beholds  with  impatience  the  complexity  and 
the  obscurities  of  real  things,  the  secret  spring 
of  life  and  activity  which  makes  them  rebel- 
lious against  arrangement  in  a  logical  system. 
He  likes  to  treat  qualities  like  quantities,  re- 
alities like  abstractions,  and  to  believe  that  a 
problem  is  resolved  the  moment;  eliminating 
every  thing  that  cannot  be  reduced  to  exact 
and  clear  concepts,  he  has  deduced  from  cer- 
tain principles,  plausible  in  themselves,  con- 
sequences logically  correct. 

Living    science    on    the    other    hand — the 


SCIENCE  AND  CULTURE  29 

science  which  follows  reality  instead  of  trying 
to  make  reality  conform  to  itself — steadily 
teaches  the  mind  to  break  away  from  that 
tyranny  of  habit  which  is  nothing  but  the  sur- 
render of  the  native  liberty  of  spirit  to  the  law 
of  inertia  which  is  the  particular  quality  of 
matter.  In  the  effort  to  proportion  means  to 
ends,  to  recognize  the  complexity  and  the  par- 
ticular nature  of  objects  in  themselves,  she 
appeals  to  the  spirit  of  sagacity  as  well  as  to 
the  spirit  of  geometry.  She  not  only  develops 
the  power  of  external  observation  and  logical 
deduction  but  she  sharpens  that  sort  of  judg- 
ment which  discerns  the  agreement  of  meth- 
ods and  problems,  the  meaning  and  value  of 
results. 

Of  course  we  must  reject  the  contention  of 
certain  romanticists,  that  science  ought  to  be 
controlled  by  literature,  unless  we  are  pre- 
pared to  accept  the  cult  of  matter,  figures  and 
force.  But,  we  must  recognize,  on  the  other 
hand,  that,  if  the  sciences  are  to  take  in  the 
education  of  mind  their  due  place,  they  must 
be  taught,  not  by  the  dogmatic  method  of  a 
professor  who  is  nothing  but  a  professor,  but. 


80  EMILE   BOUTROUX 

as  far  as  possible,  by  the  heuristic  method, 
namely  the  method  which  a  man  of  learning 
uses  in  his  researches. 

On  the  other  hand,  since  the  object  of  cul- 
ture is  the  development  of  man  as  man,  it  is 
evident  that  the  study  of  letters  has  as  much 
right  to  be  a  part  of  it  as  the  study  of  science. 
For,  if  the  sciences  show  us  the  effort  of  the 
human  mind  to  take  possession  of  things,  let- 
ters show  us  the  very  life  of  man,  made  visible 
to  himself  in  his  consciousness  and  expressed 
in  the  language  best  fitted  not  only  to  analyze 
that  life  acutely,  but  to  exalt  it,  to  beautify 
it,  to  ennoble  it  by  the  charm  or  the  grandeur 
of  the  very  expression  of  it. 

If  letters  are  to  fulfill  their  educational 
function,  we  must  not  look  on  them  as  a  mere 
branch  of  scientific  knowledge.  It  is  true 
that  erudition,  which  is  next  door  to  the  nat- 
ural sciences,  plays  a  necessary  part  in  literary 
studies.  But  erudition  bears  the  same  rela- 
tion to  literature  which  technique  bears  to  art. 
It  puts  us  in  possession  of  the  elements  and 
the  instruments:  it  takes  no  account  of  the 
internal  operation  which  from  these  minted 


SCIENCE  AND  CULTURE  31 

and  banal  data  creates  a  living  and  personal 
work  of  art.  When  we  find  in  the  authors 
Pascal  has  read,  in  Montaigne  for  example, 
more  and  more  of  the  ideas  and  even  the  ex- 
pressions which  form  the  material  of  the  im- 
mortal "Pensees,"  we  only  demonstrate  with 
still  greater  clearness  the  incommensurability 
between  materials  and  form ;  because,  after  all, 
the  work  of  Pascal  differs  radically  from  the 
work  of  Montaigne.  Pascal  himself  said: 
"The  thoughts  of  an  author  transplanted  in 
the  mind  of  another  writer  make,  sometimes,  a 
quite  new  and  different  growth."  JLes  memes 
pensees  poussent  quelquefois  tout  autrement 
dans  un  autre  que  dans  leur  auteur. 

In  spite  of  the  marvellous  progress  which 
erudition  and  the  objective  study  of  literary 
phenomena  are  making  from  day  to  day,  let- 
ters remain  essentially  different  from  the  sci- 
ences, and  that  is  just  the  reason  why  letters 
have  a  part  in  education  which  is  peculiarly 
their  own. 

In  a  sense  diametrically  opposed  to  the  su- 
perstition of  erudition,  it  is  not  uncommon 
nowadays,  to  hear  a  defence  of  the  proposition 


S2  EMILE   BOUTROUX 

that,  in  order  to  take  their  proper  place  in 
hfe,  letters  and  art  must  become  entirely  con- 
scious of  their  essential  nature,  and  that  this 
principle  peculiar  to  them,  is  seen  to  be,  when 
looked  at  in  its  purity,  feeling  entirely  separa- 
ted from  intelligence.  This  doctrine  is  what 
we  may  call  Aestheticism.  It  affirms  the  in- 
dependence and  the  sovereignty  of  art,  the 
supremacy  of  life  and  intuition,  the  superna- 
tural and  almost  divine  nature  of  genius  as  an 
infinite  and  arbitrary  power  of  creation. 

Such  a  doctrine  is  very  opportune  and  has 
a  useful  place  in  epochs  when  humanity  is 
tempted  to  believe  that  the  creative  power  of 
the  mind  is  an  illusion,  when  learned  men  try 
to  persuade  us  that  what  we  call  new,  original, 
a  work  of  genius,  appears  to  be  such  only 
because  we  do  not  know  all  its  antecedents. 
By  exalting  beyond  measure  the  aesthetic  fac- 
ulty, this  doctrine  may  awaken  and  excite  it. 
In  order  to  develop  the  forces  we  possess  it  is 
sometimes  useful  to  think  we  have  forces  we 
do  not  possess. 

It  is,  however,  worth  noticing  that  the  idea 
of  an  art  which  rests  on  intuition  alone,  on 


SCIENCE  AND  CULTURE  33 

feeling  separate  from  intelligence,  scarcely 
ever  appears  except  at  the  beginning  or  end 
of  a  great  period  in  the  history  of  art.  At  the 
beginning,  because  science  is  not  capable  of 
keeping  pace  with  inspiration;  in  the  age  of 
decadence,  because,  tired  of  beauty  which  has 
become  classic,  certain  refined  spirits  set  them- 
selves to  look  for  strange  sensations.  Art,  in 
the  time  of  full  flower,  is  intellectual  and  prac- 
tical, as  well  as  properly  aesthetic.  In  the 
ages  of  its  highest  development,  art  tends  to 
express,  in  an  idealizing  manner,  human  life 
in  its  totality.  The  Parthenon  is  not  some- 
thing luxurious,  built  only  to  satisfy  dilettanti. 
It  expresses  national  beliefs,  it  possesses  the 
harmony,  at  once  exact  and  delicate,  of  a 
Greek  tragedy.  And  the  beauty  which 
streams  from  it,  is  the  beauty  of  light,  which 
not  only  charms  the  eye  but  illuminates  the 
world  and  maintains  life. 

The  truth  is  that  the  starting  point  of  the 
theory  which  sees  in  art  a  quite  independent 
activity  of  humanity  is  contrary  to  reality. 
There  is  not  in  our  consciousness  any  feeling 
entirely  isolated  from  thought,  any  intuition 


34  EMILE   BOUTROUX 

empty  of  all  concept,  any  creation  indepen- 
dent of  ideas.  If  man  should  try  to  feel  and 
produce  outside  of  all  ideas  and  all  rules,  he 
would  become  by  his  own  consent,  the  slave  of 
chance  and  mechanical  necessity,  and  would 
produce  nothing  but  bizarre  and  insignificant 
works.  The  activity  of  genius  is  not  pure  cre- 
ation; it  is  the  production  of  beautiful  things 
' — of  things  stamped  with  the  seal  of  perfec- 
tion and  eternity. 

An  intuition  without  a  concept  is  for  man 
an  impossibility  or  a  simple  datum  without 
determinable  value. 

The  problem,  then,  is  not  to  find  out  how 
we  can  set  feeling  free  from  all  connection 
with  the  intellect,  but  to  form  an  idea  of  the 
way  in  which  our  intuitions  and  our  intellect- 
ual concepts  can  mingle  with  each  other  in 
such  a  manner  that,  without  losing  sponta- 
neity and  freedom,  the  creations  of  our  imagi- 
nations may  be  regular,  harmonious  and  in 
conformity  with  the  laws  of  intelligence.  The 
study  of  letters,  consequently,  ought  not  to 
have  for  its  object  the  development  of  the 
imagination  considered  by  itself  as  an  arbi- 


SCIENCE  AND  CULTURE  35 

trary  and  capricious  capacity  for  creating. 
Its  object  is,  rather,  the  cultivation  of  taste, 
or  judgment,  of  what  in  its  highest  form  is 
genius — that  is  to  say,  that  marvellous  faculty 
whose  characteristic  it  is  to  see,  as  if  intuitive- 
ly, and  to  produce,  as  if  spontaneously,  things 
which  subsequent  analysis  proves  are  perfectly 
in  accord  with  reason  and  truth.  Literary 
studies,  if  they  are  properly  carried  on,  do  not 
in  the  least  neglect  the  scientific  side  of  knowl- 
edge. But  they  incorporate  science  with  the 
imagination  and  the  judgment  to  the  extent 
of  transforming  it,  as  it  were,  into  sentiment 
and  intuition. 

From  the  considerations  we  have  laid  before 
you,  we  conclude  that  human  culture,  when 
properly  carried  on,  ought  to  be  at  the  same 
time  scientific  and  literary — in  a  word,  uni- 
versal. 

In  reality,  all  things  in  nature  cling  to  each 
other.  A  thing  isolated  from  other  things, 
is,  because  of  that  very  fact,  imperfectly  and 
inexactly  understood.  In  order  to  see  justly, 
we  must  see  everything  in  its  relation  to  the 
whole,  and,  to  succeed  in  raising  human  nature 


36  EMILE  BOUTROUX 

towards  its  ideal  form,  we  must  exercise  and 
develop  harmoniously  all  the  faculties  of  man. 

But,  if  that  is  the  case,  is  not  the  task  which 
a  true  culture  implies  really  chimerical,  and 
is  it  not  more  practical,  instead  of  aiming  to 
reach  something  sublime  but  inaccessible,  to 
restrict  ourselves  to  specialization  and  the 
division  of  labor  which  is  the  method  approved 
by  human  industry  and  by  nature  herself. 

Certainly  the  task  is  just  now  more  difficult 
than  it  ever  was.  But  it  has  not  lost  its  glory 
and  it  is  worth  while  not  to  give  up  the  ideal 
without  having  done  all  in  our  power  to  come 
nearer  to  its  realization. 

The  universality  whose  reconciliation  with 
specialization  concerns  us,  can  be  understood 
in  several  ways. 

It  can  be  defined  as  the  possession  of  all  the 
knowledge  and  of  all  the  talents  which  human 
nature  is  capable  of  possessing. 

Now  it  is  only  too  clear  that,  in  this  sense, 
universality  is  an  Utopia,  not  to  say  an  ab- 
surdity. A  very  small  number  of  men,  in 
the  past,  are  reputed  to  have  united  in  them- 
selves all  knowledge  then  possessed  by  the  na- 


SCIENCE  AND  CULTURE  37 

tion  to  which  they  belonged.  Such  a  preten- 
sion, today,  would  be  madness:  if  we  were  to 
divide  among  so  many  different  objects  the 
small  amount  of  intellectual  force  we  possess, 
we  should  condemn  ourselves  to  have  nothing 
but  vague  and  useless  ideas  in  regard  to  every 
one  of  them. 

Universality  can,  in  the  second  place,  be 
understoood  in  a  perfectly  logical  sense  as  the 
possession  of  the  general  ideas  which  are  the 
underlying  principles  of  the  different  sciences 
and  the  different  arts. 

But  such  ideas,  taken  by  themselves — 
that  is  to  say,  separated  from  the  consideration 
of  the  details  of  things — are  scarcely  more  than 
empty  rubrics,  useful  at  best  only  to  furnish 
subjects  for  commonplace  conversations  or 
for  abstract  and  sterile  disputations. 

There  is  a  third  way  of  understanding  uni- 
versality, and  that  is  to  look  for  it,  not  in  the 
objects  of  knowledge,  or,  even,  in  the  con- 
cepts which  interpret  their  common  character- 
istics, but  in  the  spirit  of  man  as  a  living 
nature,  the  virtualities  of  which  surpass  both 
the  concepts  of  the  intelligence,  and  the  objects 


38  ^MILE   BOUTROUX 

of  science.  In  a  general  way  what  we  call 
life,  soul,  spirit,  is  the  conciliation  and  reunion 
by  a  sort  of  fusion  and  internal  transfiguration 
of  qualities  which,  in  the  world  of  space  and 
matter,  are  invincibly  exterior  and  impenetra- 
ble to  each  other.  How  can,  for  example, 
identity  and  change  get  united?  An  insolu- 
ble problem  in  the  material  or  logical  world. 
But  life  conciliates  these  two  terms.  The  liv- 
ing being  remains  himself,  while  he  is  evolving. 
How,  in  the  world  of  matter,  can  anything  be 
at  the  same  time  young  and  old,  live  in  the 
present,  the  past  and  the  future,  inhabit  simul- 
taneously different  regions  of  space?  The 
mode  of  existence  which  we  call  consciousness 
solves  those  paradoxical  problems. 

Cannot  the  spirit  of  man  solve  in  its  own 
way  the  problem  of  general  culture? 

When  a  man  practices  a  science  for  a  long 
time  and  intelligently,  he  acquires  not  only  a 
certain  amount  of  knowledge  but,  in  addition, 
a  certain  intellectual  disposition  which  cannot 
be  expressed  in  any  formula,  but  which  is, 
none  the  less,  real  and  usable.  Thanks  to 
that  intellectual  disposition,  the  man  of  learn- 


\ 


SCIENCE   AND  CULTURE  39 

ing  makes  an  easy  and  assured  progress  in 
the  science  he  has  studied.  He  has  assimilated 
the  spirit  of  that  sort  of  knowledge  in  such  a 
way  that,  henceforth,  he  finds  himself  at  home 
there. 

Now  it  is  a  characteristic  of  human  nature, 
that  when  several  individuals  have  intercourse 
with  each  other,  they  not  only  exchange  from 
without  certain  definite  pieces  of  information 
or  methods  of  action,  but,  by  a  sort  of  internal 
contagion  from  soul  to  soul  and  mind  to  mind 
exert  a  reciprocal  influence.  "It  is  the  peculiar 
characteristic  of  mind,"  says  Goethe,  "t^ 
arouse  perpetually  the  activity  of  mind." 
Dies  ist  die  Eigenschaft  des  Geistes,  dass  er 
den  Geist  ewig  anregt. 

And  that  influence  of  one  spirit  upon  an- 
other, is  much  more  certain  and  effectual, 
when  there  is  not  only  an  exchange  of  intel- 
lectual ideas,  but  a  union  of  hearts.  Who 
knows,  indeeed,  whether  that  may  not  be  an 
indispensable  condition?  "It  is  impossible," 
said  Xenophon,  "to  learn  anything  from  a 
master  one  does  not  love":  ^jnqhevl  fjurj^eixLav 
eivai  Trdihevcriv  irapa  tov  firj  apicrKovro^;. 


40  EMILE  BOUTROUX 

What  then  is  needed  in  order  that  human 
intelhgence  may  make  real  for  men,  in 
the  sense  in  which  it  is  proper  and  possible, 
that  universality  of  culture  towards  which  we 
ought  to  strive? 

The  means  of  encouraging  in  the  most  in- 
timate and  fruitful  way  that  mutual  mingling 
of  intelligences,  would  be  to  unite  under  the 
same  roof  and  to  invite  to  a  common  life,  men, 
devoted  to  different  sciences,  already  some- 
what advanced  in  their  respective  studies,  but 
still  young  enough  to  have  supple  minds. 

If  these  young  men  form  bonds  of  friend- 
ship, as  is  natural  between  noble  and  generous 
hearts  in  love  with  higher  culture,  their  life 
together  will  not  only  be  charming  and  a  joy, 
it  will  bring  about  insensibly  an  enlargement 
of  their  minds,  it  will  give  to  each  of  them 
an  idea  of  sciences  and  of  methods  of  intel- 
lectual activity  which  he,  by  himself,  has  not 
the  leisure  to  cultivate,  and  so  it  will  lead  the 
young  men  on  the  road  towards  that  univer- 
sality of  comprehension  and  of  sympathy 
which  is  the  ideal  of  human  culture. 

The  creation  of  a  community  like  the  Grad- 


\ 


SCIENCE  AND  CULTURE  41 

uate  College  of  Princeton  is  a  method  very 
happily  conceived  of  solving,  so  far  as  the 
education  of  the  mind  is  concerned,  the  great 
problem  already  admirably  formulated  by  the 
Sages  of  Greece: 
IIw?  Se  fjiOL  ev  TL  TOL  TTOLvr  icrraL  kol  x<wp^5  eKaarov; 

"What  can  be  done  to  bring  it  to  pass  that 
the  totality  of  things  may  be  a  unit,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  each  part  of  it  may  be  a  unit?" 

For  the  honor  of  humanity,  as  well  as  for 
that  of  the  United  States  of  America,  I  wish 
success  and  prosperity  for  this  wise  and  beau- 
tiful institution. 


THE  VOCATION  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
AT  THE  PRESENT  DAY 


i 


THE  VOCATION  OF  PHILOSOPHY 
AT  THE  PRESENT  DAY 

By  Alois  Riehl 

When  you  did  me  the  honor  of  inviting  me 
to  dehver  an  address  before  this  illustrious 
university  upon  the  occasion  of  the  opening 
of  the  new  Graduate  College,  having  decided 
to  comply  with  your  request,  I  could  not  long 
remain  in  doubt  as  to  the  choice  of  a  subject. 
Only  a  subject  of  general  import  seemed  to 
me  appropriate  to  the  end  in  view.  For  this 
reason  it  will  be  my  endeavor  to  unfold  to  you 
a  few  thoughts  on  the  vocation  of  philosophy 
in  our  time. 

A  renewed  and  deepened  study  of  Kant  in 
the  concluding  third  of  the  last  century  marks 
the  point  at  which  the  philosophical  movement 
of  the  present  day  begins.  The  speculative 
construction  of  nature  was  an  adventure  which 
ended  in  disaster,  and  by  a  natural  reaction 

45 


46  AI.OIS  RIEHL 

philosophy  found  itself,  in  Helmholtz's  words, 
once  more  upon  a  healthy  footing  in  Kant. 
From  its  position  here  it  first  proceeded  to  a 
fresh  self-examination.  Meanwhile  natural 
science  had  issued  in  discoveries  and  views  of 
philosophical  significance,  among  others  the 
discovery  of  the  Conservation  of  Energy — the 
principle  which  made  it  possible  for  the  first 
time  to  combine  all  the  parts  of  physics  into 
a  single  system.  The  idea  of  development 
had  been  applied  to  the  investigation  of  or- 
ganic nature  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Origin  of 
Species.  In  proportion  as  scientific  research 
assumed  exacter  forms  it  became  more  and 
more  conscious  of  the  conditions  under  which 
it  labored.  A  physiologist  of  repute  spoke  of 
"the  limits  of  our  knowledge  of  nature."  Be- 
tween a  natural  science  grown  critical  and  a 
philosophy  which  had  made  it  its  principal  bus- 
iness to  examine  the  sources  and  determine 
the  limits  of  knowledge  a  rapprochement, 
which  was  soon  to  develop  into  an  alliance, 
became  feasible.  Mathematicians  and  physi- 
cists of  standing,  Ludwig  Boltzmann,  Henri 
Poincare,  Ernst  Mach  and  others,  following 


THE  VOCATION  OF   PHILOSOPHY  47 

the  example  of  Helmholtz,  took  part  in  the 
philosophical  controversies  on  the  foundations 
of  knowledge.  Those  two  long  divided  and 
hostile  forces,  science  and  philosophy,  did  not 
stop  at  a  mere  reconciliation,  but  went  on  to 
establish  something  in  the  nature  of  a  confed- 
eracy. Yet,  promising  as  was  the  movement 
thus  inaugurated,  and  short  as  is  the  interval 
that  has  elapsed  since  then,  the  period  of 
Scientific  Philosophy  seems  to  many  in  our 
day  to  be  already  at  an  end. 

The  young  generation  of  the  nineties,  com- 
pared with  the  preceding,  evinced  a  new  spir- 
itual attitude,  a  change  of  direction  in  their 
thought.  Mere  science  failed  to  satisfy  them. 
Nietzsche  became  their  spokesman.  Life,  more 
exultant  Life,  their  cry.  And  who  would  deny 
them  a  certain  right  to  this  change  of  view? 
Science,  or  what  then  passed  for  almost  the 
same  thing,  natural  science,  had,  one  might 
almost  say,  over-reached  itself.  It  had  ex- 
tended its  claim  to  dominion  beyond  its  legiti- 
mate province — not  indeed  on  the  part  of  its 
proper  representatives  but  of  those  who  had 
appropriated  its  conclusions  to  dogmatic  pur- 


48  ALOIS  RIEHL 

poses.  Historians,  not  professional  investiga- 
tors, seriously  endeavored  to  make  a  natural 
science  of  history  itself.  For  them  man  was  a 
product  of  his  environment.  To  turn  a  pro- 
verb round,  they  did  not  see  the  trees  for  the 
wood,  the  personal  forces  of  history  for  the 
massive  groupings  of  phenomena  and  their 
statistics.  No,  came  the  rejoinder,  science  is 
inhuman.  It  has  as  good  as  nothing  to  do 
with  us  and  with  the  true  tendencies  of  our 
spiritual  life.  It  cannot  take  the  place  of  re- 
ligion. It  cannot  take  the  place  of  art.  It 
only  thinks,  it  does  not  act.  Its  kingdom  is  the 
dead.  In  face  of  its  conceptions  the  living 
\turns  to  stone. 

Where  opposing  currents  meet,  the  usual 
course  of  events  is  a  onesided  movement  fol- 
lowed by  another  in  the  opposite  direction.  So 
it  happened  now.  The  reaction  against  Scien- 
tific Intellectualism  passed  beyond  the  mark. 
Men  went  so  far  as  to  deny  all  intrinsic 
epistemological  value  to  the  science  of  Galileo 
and  Newton,  restricting  its  legitimacy  to  the 
sphere  of  practical  and  technical  application. 
Once  more  men  began  to  philosophize  without 


THE  VOCATION  OF   PHILOSOPHY  49 

science  and  against  science.  Once  more  phil- 
osophy bowed  the  neck  to  letters,  and  it  is  at 
best  as  literature  that  the  productions  of  that 
movement  can  be  regarded.  The  conceptions 
of  science  were  explained  as  symbols,  and  in 
their  stead  was  devised  a  philosophy  of  meta- 
phors— in  this  case  veritable  symbols.  The 
place  of  clear  and  definite  thoughts  that  could 
be  grasped  was  taken  by  interpretative  feel- 
ing, "intellectual  sympathy."  Here  was  the 
power  to  transplant  us  into  the  inwardness 
of  things,  to  enable  us  to  lay  hold  upon  the 
Absolute.  This  new  philosophy  of  Intuition 
is  in  truth  nothing  but  a  return  of  Roman- 
ticism to  life.  Like  the  former,  this  Romanti- 
cism was  a  reaction  of  feeling  and  imagination 
against  reason  and  clearness.  It  was  the  sub- 
jugation of  philosophy  by  poetry.  Its  signifi- 
cance is  that  of  a  genuinely  literary  epoch. 
"Creative  evolution"  is  a  legend  which 
breathes  the  very  spirit  of  Romanticism. 
Against  this  kind  of  a  philosophy  of  nature, 
which  is  neither  philosophy  nor  natural  science, 
the  last  word  was  spoken  at  a  later  point  in 
his  career  by  Fichte:    "Incapable  of  basing  its 


50  ALOIS  RIEHL 

obscure  thoughts  upon  reasons,  in  place  of 
these  it  points  to  the  faculty  whereby  it  is  car- 
ried away,  and  calls  this  intellectual  insight/' 
To-day  this  faculty  is  known  as  intellectual 
sympathy  or  intuition. 

The  opposition  to  science  assumes  another 
form,  and  one  which  has  preserved  itself  from 
all  ostensible  bias  in  a  romantic  direction. 
Had  Pragmatism  only  aimed  at  uniting 
knowledge  with  life  instead  of  separating  it 
from  life,  it  must  have  claimed  our  recognition. 
As  it  was  it  could  not  overlook  the  fact  that  to 
know  also  belongs  to  the  life  of  the  spirit,  and 
if  knowledge  is  not  the  one  and  only  spiritual 
value,  still  it  has  a  value  of  its  own.  Truth  is 
no  mere  adjunct  to  utility.  It  is  not  made  true 
because  it  is  useful.  It  is  not  made  at  all,  not 
yet  invented:  it  is  discovered.  We  must  not 
be  misled  by  the  term  verification^  which  is 
not  meant  to  imply  that  truths  are  made.  Its 
meaning  is  that  truths  are  made  good;  and 
that,  not  as  Pragmatism  would  have  it,  by 
feelings  and  wishes,  but,  as  natural  science 
shows,  by  facts  which  are  independent  of  our 
liking  and  of  all  reference  to  our  interests.    In 


THE  VOCATION  OF   PHILOSOPHY  51 

view  of  this  uncertain  and,  to  some  extent, 
confused  position  of  contemporary  philosophy, 
the  search  for  a  criterion  by  which  to  estimate 
its  endeavors  is  indispensable.  The  way  to 
find  this  criterion  is  through  an  historical  con- 
sideration of  the  matter. 

Philosophy  and  science  are  of  simultaneous 
origin.  More  exactly,  science  came  to  life 
in  the  guise  of  philosophy.  Centuries  later 
Aristotle  saw  in  its  creation  something  more 
than  human.  Thales  and  his  successors  had 
sought  scientific  knowledge  for  its  own  sake 
and  not  for  the  sake  of  its  utility.  Here  we 
see  the  reason  why  they  thought  science  alone 
free  and  reckoned  its  possession  as  something 
divine — viz.,  that  it  does  not  make  utility  the 
object  of  its  pursuit.  And  we  to-day  repeat 
with  veneration  the  names  of  those  early  fath- 
ers of  our  men  of  science  and  our  philosophers, 
Anaximander,  Pythagoras,  Heraclitus,  Par- 
menides,  and  seek  through  an  obscure  tradi- 
tion to  catch  a  glimpse  of  their  personalities. 
Those  thinkers  of  the  pre-Socratic  era  antici- 
pated all  the  fundamental  conceptions  involved 
in  the  general  scientific  view  of  things,  and 


52  ALOIS  RIEHL 

thus  erected  the  frame  which,  it  is  true,  the 
scientific  investigation  of  following  ages  was 
to  fill  out  with  a  richer  content,  but  which  it 
could  not  enlarge.  For  the  general  points  of 
view  from  which  nature  is  investigated  and 
which  these  thinkers  discovered  one  by  one — 
the  conception  of  substance  and  the  quantita- 
tive invariability  of  the  given,  the  subordina- 
tion of  events  to  law,  the  mathematical  deter- 
minateness  of  phenomena — are  derived  in  the 
last  resort  from  the  constitution  of  the  human 
spirit  which  carries  out  the  investigation. 

But  it  was  not  possible  that  philosophy 
should  ever  be  content  to  remain  mere  science, 
else  it  would  not  have  been  philosophy.  For 
the  latter  applies  itself  as  such  not  only  to 
the  whole  of  things  but  also  to  the  whole  spirit- 
ual life  and  its  creative  tendencies. 

Socrates,  the  pedagogical  genius  of  phil- 
osophy, discovered  in  man  a  spiritual  force 
superior  to  all  the  motives  of  the  sensuous 
nature.  He  not  only  discovered  this,  he  lived 
it  out.  His  life  and  its  culminating  act,  his 
death,  appear  to  us,  as  to  the  ancients,  the  rev- 
elation of  an  unconditioned  might  of  the  spirit, 


THE  VOCATION  OF   PHILOSOPHY  53 

the  triumph  of  the  clearness  of  consciousness 
and  of  a  sovereign  will  over  the  instincts. 

From  the  age  of  Socrates  on,  philosophy 
has  come  to  apprehend  its  scientific  mission  in 
a  practical  sense — that  of  being  an  art  to  guide 
the  spirit  and  mould  the  life.  It  became  in 
consequence  a  living  power,  which  developed 
first  in  the  culture  of  the  Greeks,  and  latterly 
in  the  culture  of  mankind. 

In  Plato's  teaching  the  two  tendencies  of 
philosophy,  the  theoretical  and  the  practical, 
enter  into  a  combination  which  in  its  complete- 
ness has  remained  the  pattern  for  all  succeed- 
ing time.  If  we  wish  to  see  ancient  philosophy 
at  work  in  its  twofold  calling,  we  must  view  it 
at  its  culminating  point,  the  point  which  it 
reached  in  the  Academy  founded  and  directed 
by  Plato.  The  Academy  united  in  a  common 
life  a  wide  circle  of  disciples  and  learners  and 
a  narrower  circle  of  investigators  and  teachers, 
with  Plato  at  their  head.  The  aim  of  the  asso- 
ciation was  twofold,  the  organization  of 
knowledge  and  the  mastery  of  the  forms  of 
life  through  knowledge — the  knowledge  of 
the  "Ideas." 


54  ALOIS  RIEHL 

In  the  Academy  all  the  fields  of  knowledge 
were  systematically  investigated  from  central 
points  of  view.  Plato  in  person  set  their  prob- 
lems to  the  friends  who  joined  him  in  re- 
search. Thus  he  introduced  the  analytic 
method  into  the  solution  of  geometrical  prob- 
lems: he  gave  the  initial  impetus  to  the  study 
of  solids  through  his  pupil  Theaetetus ;  and  to 
him  is  due  the  well-known  astronomical  prob- 
lem of  estimating,  by  means  of  hypotheses,  the 
uniform  and  regular  movements  required  to 
keep  the  phenomena  of  the  planetary  move- 
ments as  they  are.  The  aco^eiv  tol  (f)aLv6fjieva, 
the  demand  that  phenomena  shall  be  kept  in- 
tact, is  altogether  in  the  spirit  of  present-day 
positive  science,  and  is  the  guiding  maxim  of 
our  exact  investigation.  We  too  endeavor  to 
approach  the  understanding  of  reality  through 
mathematical  assumptions,  comparing  the  en- 
suing results  with  the  actual  appearances.  We 
too  "preserve"  phenomena  in  our  scientific 
investigations. 

Just  as  the  Academy  occupied  a  central 
position  in  the  common  work  of  research,  so  it 
speedily  became  a  court  of  appeal  in  questions 


THE  VOCATION  OF   PHILOSOPHY  55 

of  government  as  well.  When  doubtful  issues 
arose  men  turned  to  it  for  instruction.  Plato 
lived  in  the  conviction  that  nothing  but  clear 
insight  into  the  highest  ends  of  conduct  could 
bring  salvation  into  the  affairs  of  men.  From 
this  conviction  arose  his  demand  that  the 
rulers  of  the  state  should  be  philosophers. 

In  the  Academy  knowledge  and  moral  liv- 
ing were  alike  placed  under  the  guidance  of 
philosophy. 

In  modern  times  also  this  double  calling  of 
philosophy  has  never  been  forgotten.  Spin- 
oza's philosophy  is  and  is  called  Ethics,  It 
culminates  in  a  more  than  rational,  an  intui- 
tive, apprehension  of  the  unity  of  our  spiritual 
life  with  the  creative  substance  of  the  Divine 
Being,  the  actuosa  essentia  Dei,  Kant  dis- 
tinguishes the  "Schulbegriff"  of  philosophy 
from  its  "Weltbegriff."  From  the  former 
point  of  view  philosophy  is  "a  system  of 
knowledge  pursued  as  science,"  from  the  lat- 
ter, philosophy  relates  all  knowledge  to  the 
essential  ends  of  human  reason,  and  in  the 
sense  implied  in  this  conception  the  philoso- 
pher is  the  Lawgiver  of  Reason  and  an  In- 


56  ALOIS  RIEHI. 

structor  in  the  Ideal.  In  more  emphatic  tones 
Nietzsche  enounces  the  same  thought.  The 
true  philosopher,  he  declares,  is  a  commander 
and  lawgiver.  He  is  one  who  says:  It 
shall  be  so.  With  him  to  know  is  to  create ;  to 
create,  to  issue  laws.  But  it  was  Fichte  above 
all  who  revived  the  Platonic  conception  of 
philosophy  and  the  type  of  the  Platonic 
philosopher.  The  philosopher,  or,  as  Fichte 
calls  him,  the  Man  of  Learning,  carries  within 
him  in  idea  the  form  of  the  coming  age;  his 
life  is  the  very  "life  of  the  divine  Idea  as  it 
makes  and  unmakes  the  world."  According 
as  this  life  comes  out  in  action  or  confines  it- 
self to  the  concept,  we  have  two  main  classes 
of  philosophers.  The  first  of  these  Fichte 
designates  the  class  of  rulers — a  name  which 
recalls  Plato's  Archons.  To  this  class  be- 
long all  those  who  have  the  right  and  the 
natural  call  to  form  an  independent  judgment 
and  to  decide  in  a  way  that  will  hold  good, 
upon  the  regulation  of  human  affairs.  The 
second  class,  that  of  the  philosophers  or  "men 
of  learning"  in  the  narrower  sense,  falls  again 
into  two  divisions:  a  class  who  educate  the 


THE  VOCATION  OF   PHILOSOPHY  57 

scholars  and  a  class  of  writers  or  investigators. 
It  is  matter  of  knowledge  how  great  was  the 
value  which  Fichte,  the  orator  and  edifier  of 
his  nation  placed  upon  education.  We  think 
instinctively  of  the  meaning  of  education  in 
Plato's  Republic. 

But  how  can  philosophy  at  the  present  day 
fulfill  the  twofold  vocation  which  she  once 
exercised  in  the  Academy?  To  begin  with, 
how  can  she  solve  the  problem  of  organizing 
knowledge? 

The  age  of  the  positive  sciences  has  brought 
with  it,  along  with  the  increasing  separation 
of  the  departments  of  knowledge,  an  ever  ad- 
vancing division  of  scientific  labour;  and  no 
one  man  can  any  longer  master  the  sum  total 
of  the  knowledge  of  his  day,  or  take  upon  him 
to  prescribe  the  problems  for  investigation. 
The  process  of  specialization  in  knowledge, 
the  autonomous  development  of  separate  dis- 
ciplines, is  irresistible,  and  irresistible  it  needs 
must  be.  All  the  more  insistent  is  the  de- 
mand which  arises,  that  we  should  not  lose  in 
^  specialization  the  consciousness  of  the  unity 
of  all  knowledge.    The  sciences  in  their  total- 


58  ALOIS  IlIEHL 

ity,  as  Descartes  showed,  are  nothing  else  than 
human  knowledge,  and  this  is  always  one  and 
the  same,  however  different  the  objects  to 
which  it  may  be  applied — just  as  the  light  of 
the  sun  is  one  and  the  same  however  different 
the  things  on  which  it  shines.  We  have  indeed 
ceased  to  believe  in  the  possibility  of  a  sys- 
tem of  all  knowledge  which  can  be  rounded  off 
at  any  one  moment.  We  have  even  ceased  to 
desire  this  possibility.  Its  realization  would 
seem  to  us  like  the  extinction,  the  very  death, 
of  the  motive  to  knowledge.  But  in  giving  up 
the  idea  of  a  system  in  the  sense  of  a  work 
which,  once  accomplished,  had  only  to  be 
learnt  and  passed  on,  we  do  not  necessarily 
relinquish  system  in  the  sense  of  a  tendency. 
All  real  knowledge  is  distinguished  from  mere 
knowledge  of  fact  by  its  inherent  inclination 
for  system.  It  is  here  that  the  significance  of  a 
theory  of  knowledge,  the  significance  of  a  uni- 
versal doctrine  of  science,  comes  into  view. 
Historically  too  this  central  philosophical  dis- 
cipline made  its  appearance  and  developed  as 
a  consequence  and  demand  of  the  age  of  the 
special  sciences.     Science  as  such  has  become 


THE  VOCATION  OF   PHILOSOPHY  59 

a  problem  of  philosophy.  In  examining  the 
element  of  knowledge  in  all  we  know,  and  in 
unearthing  the  presuppositions  involved, 
epistemology  provides  positive  research  with  a 
criterion  by  which  it  can  judge  its  work  and 
determine  its  relation  to  the  sum  of  knowledge. 
Every  science  leads  to  epistemological  prob- 
lems, and  hence  the  study  of  these  problems  is 
a  way  by  which  we  may  hope  once  more  to 
achieve  the  organization  of  knowledge  in  these 
days. 

Moreover  a  kind  of  Platonic  Academy 
adapted  to  the  altered  position  of  science  is 
even  yet  possible.  I  mean  the  restoration  and 
manifold  development  of  living  relations 
among  those  who  are  to  carry  on  the  future 
work  of  the  sciences  in  different  fields.  This 
way  the  Graduate  College  has  marked  out  as 
its  own — provided  it  seeks  to  create  such  rela- 
tions among  its  sons  while  they  are  still  learn- 
ers and  at  the  fresh  and  receptive  age  in  which 
the  fundamental  principles  of  investigation  are 
customarily  set  on  a  firm  basis  for  a  whole  life 
of  scientific  activity. 

Still  more   essential   for   the   present   day, 


GO  ALOIS  RIEHL 

however,  appears  that  other  caUing  of  phil- 
osophy over  and  above  the  theoretical — her 
call  to  lead  the  spirit  on  the  ground  that 
science  has  made  sure. 

Our  time  craves  a  new  spiritual  content  for 
life,  a  rejuvenescence  of  inward  culture.  This 
craving,  which  no  progress  of  external  civiliza- 
tion can  satisfy,  is  met  on  the  side  of  science 
by  the  rising  philosophy  of  history — taking  the 
latter  word  in  the  wider  sense  of  a  philosophy 
of  spiritual  values.  Here  it  is  that  the  phi- 
losophy of  the  present  day  joins  hands  with  the 
great  tendencies  of  German  Idealism,  from 
which  it  inherits  that  most  priceless  heirloom, 
a  sense  for  the  life  of  history. 

Historically,  everything  has  had  its  origin 
in  spiritual  behavior  complicated  by  reaction 
with  the  world  of  sense.  Hence  history  has 
not,  nor  can  it  have,  any  existence  apart  from 
the  life  of  the  spirit.  History  is  time's  con- 
tent :  what  works  through  it,  what  perpetuates 
itself  in  it,  is  not  cut  off  from  the  present  by 
the  form  of  time.  History  happens;  history 
lasts;  of  history  Bergson's  conception  of  time 
really  holds  good.     "Objective  spirit" — that 


THE  VOCATION  OF   PHILOSOPHY  61 

term  of  Hegel's  coining,  so  expressive,  so 
a  propos,  means  more  to  us  than  it  could  have 
meant  to  him  who  first  used  it.  It  means  not 
a  mere  stage  in  the  process  of  development, 
but  the  very  essence  of  history  itself.  It 
means  that  in  all  outward  manifestations  of 
the  historical  life,  taken  individually  or  as  a 
whole,  there  is  a  single  set  of  energies  at  work. 
Under  this  enlarged  conception  of  the  objec- 
tive spirit  fall  alike  education,  morality,  the 
state  and  right,  religion,  art,  science.  All 
these  are  objectivations  of  the  life  of  the  spirit 
in  the  field  of  history. 

So  far,  however,  in  our  treatment  of  this 
matter,  we  have  been  dealing  only  with  theory. 
But  philosophy  is  no  mere  contemplation  of 
life,  it  is  a  form  of  life,  it  is  "objective  spirit" 
itself.  The  realm  of  "Ideas"  to  which  it  leads 
us  must  be  not  merely  known;  it  must  be 
actualized.  Practical  principles  do  not  exist 
in  order  to  be  proved ;  they  exist  in  order  to  be 
followed  out.  Their  proof  is  their  power  to 
be  the  guide  of  conduct.  All  science,  says 
Fichte  in  the  same  strain,  provides  grounds 
for  action. 


62  ALOIS  RIEHL 

^  The  life  of  the  spirit  is  by  nature  an  active 
hfe.  It  knows  no  power  that  can  compel  it 
from  without  or  from  above.  In  all  its  crea- 
tions it  is  the  determining  agent,  carrying  its 
law  with  it.  In  knowledge  it  is  the  logical 
postulates  and  the  a  priori  elements  in  what  we 
know,  which  take  their  rise  in  the  active  nature 
of  the  spirit ;  in  art  it  is  the  dominion  of  form 
over  matter;  in  the  sphere  of  moral  conduct, 
the  obligation  and  responsibility  imposed  hy 
the  self;  in  that  of  religious  experience,  the 
inward  conviction  of  the  heart  and  the  volun- 
tary surrender  to  the  divine.  In  every  one  of 
its  forms  and  in  all  its  spheres  the  life  of 
the  spirit  is  an  autonomous  life.  Freedom 
through  self-imposed  laws  is  its  element,  the 
realization  of  freedom  its  destination.  We 
think  of  it  as  drawn  from  an  original  fund 
of  activity  deep  down  in  the  heart  of  things. 
But  it  has  been  in  the  past,  and  is  now  being 
developed  through  the  associations  that  bind 

y  individuals  together,  the  family,  society,  the 
state,  the  religious  community.  And  the  con- 
summation is  attained  in  the  great  personality, 
who  is  at  once  the  creator  of  culture  and  its 
highest  point. 


THE  VOCATION  OF   PHILOSOPHY  63 

There  exists  a  system  of  values.  As  surely 
as  the  Spirit  is  a  living  unity,  there  is  a  har- 
mony to  be  created  between  the  fundamental 
tendencies  of  the  spiritual  life.  It  is  the  voca- 
tion of  philosophy  as  a  guide  to  the  spirit,  to 
raise  the  knowledge  of  values  and  of  the  sys- 
tem of  values  to  the  clearness  of  the  concept — 
to  maintain,  at  whatever  cost  of  struggle  and 
effort,  the  harmonious  disposition  of  our  life. 

It  was  this  vocation  which,  over  and  above 
its  scientific  calling,  philosophy  fulfilled  in 
days  gone  by,  and  this  same  twofold  calling  is 
still  its  mission  to  the  present  day. 


THE  PRESENT  POSITION  OF 

CLASSICAL  STUDIES 

IN  ENGLAND 


THE  PRESENT  POSITION  OF 

CLASSICAL  STUDIES 

IN  ENGLAND 

By  a.  D.  Godley 

The  moral  of  the  recent  history  of  classical 
study  in  England  seems  to  be  that  disestab- 
lishment— whatever  we  may  think  of  it  in  the 
political  world — is  not  always  and  everywhere 
bad  for  the  disestablished.  It  may  at  times 
serve  as  a  salutary  tonic.  Certainly  one  may 
say  that  the  modern  development  of  interest 
in  classical  literature  dates  from  about  the 
period — the  sixties  of  the  last  century — when 
writers  on  liberal  education  proposed  to  de- 
throne Latin  and  Greek  from  the  educational 
supremacy  which  they  then  held,  and  to  sub- 
stitute the  study  of  modern  subjects,  more 
especially  natural  science.  The  volume  called 
"Essays  on  a  Liberal  Education,"  is  probably 
not  much  read  now,  and  there  is  no  great 
reason  why  it  should  be  read, — for  our  present 

67 


68  A.  D.  GODLEY 

guidance,  at  any  rate.  As  usually  happens  at 
the  beginning  of  a  controversy,  the  issues  were 
presented  rather  crudely,  and,  in  some  cases, 
over-polemically ;  compromise,  not  war,  was 
the  deciding  method  later.  Some  of  the  sug- 
gestions have  since  been  adopted;  others  have 
been  tried  and  found  wanting.  All  the  ques- 
tions raised  have  been  fully  and  freely  dis- 
cussed, and  not  much  is  to  be  gained  by  going 
back  to  their  earliest  inception. 

But  one  may  say  parenthetically  that  this 
earliest  phase  of  a  long  controversy  has  a  cer- 
tain historical  interest.  It  illustrates  the  ad- 
mirable optimism  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
more  especially  that  part  of  it  in  England 
which  is  usually  described  as  the  heyday  of 
liberalism.  Something  or  other  was  always 
going  to  be  a  panacea  in  those  days :  something 
or  other,  provided  always  it  could  be  credited 
to  English  liberalism,  was  always  going  to 
bring  the  millennium, — that  millennium  which 
nowadays  only  politicians  promise  us,  and 
that  only  because  it  is  part  of  a  politician's 
business.  The  1851  exhibition  was  going  to  do 
it;  free  competition  and  ''laisser  faire'  was 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND  69 

going  to  do  it;  in  the  more  limited  sphere  of 
education,  it  was  sometimes  comparative  phi- 
lology, and  more  often  science,  that  held  the 
key  to  all  mental  elevation.  And  in  the  six- 
ties thoughtful  men  imagined  that  the  world 
was  to  be  regenerated — in  the  true  spirit  of 
the  sadly  iconoclastic  liberalism  of  those  days 
— by  getting  rid  of  a  classical  education.  At 
least,  that  was  the  way  these  early  contro- 
versialists put  it,  in  their  first  fine,  careless 
rapture.  The  time  for  half  measures  and  com- 
promises was  not  yet.  Probably  they  felt  that 
the  best  way  to  inaugurate  reform  was  to  at- 
tack with  more  vehemence  than  was  really 
right  and  necessary;  to  strike  a  little  harder 
than  they  need  in  order  that  they  might  have 
a  stronger  position  in  the  day  of  negotiation. 
What  they  really  meant  to  do,  and  what  the 
fairest  of  their  critics  read  between  the  lines, 
was  not  to  expel  but  to  equalize;  to  assert  the 
right,  too  much  neglected  at  that  time,  of 
other  subjects;  to  give  modern  things,  as  well 
as  Latin  and  Greek,  their  place  in  the  sun. 

Well,  it  is  needless  to  point  out  that  that 
place  in  the  sun  has  been  very  amply  con- 


70  A.  D.  GODLEY 

ceded.  The  whole  fabric  of  European  and 
American  education  bears  testimony  to  that. 
Science  and  modern  languages  have  so  many 
of  the  rooms  on  the  south  side  that  the  classics 
now  have  to  put  up  with  the  cold  shade  of 
neglect.  They  have  been,  educationally,  dises- 
tablished; they  have  been  ousted  from  their 
proud  supremacy;  but  it  looks  as  if  disestab- 
lishment had  made  classical  teaching  more  en- 
ergetic than  ever,  and  given  it  stronger  claims 
on  popular  sympathy.  It  is  difficult  to  speak 
of  cause  and  effect  here.  I  do  not  know 
whether  it  would  be  an  insult  or  a  compliment 
to  teachers  of  the  classics  to  suggest  that  they 
were  intimidated  by  the  threats  of  essayists 
into  setting  their  house  in  order  and  infusing 
more  life  into  their  instruction:  it  would  be  a 
compliment  to  their  adaptability  and  power 
of  dealing  with  circumstances,  but  it  might  be 
a  reflection  on  the  character  which  needed  the 
stimulus  of  terror  to  achieve  its  full  perfection. 
It  is  better,  I  think,  to  take  the  safe  ground 
of  showing  that  the  English-speaking  world 
was  at  that  particular  period  really  ripe  for  a 
new  start  in  the  matter  of  Latin  and  Greek. 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND  71 

Probably  the  forces  which  made  for  attack, 
differently  applied,  made  also  for  defence. 
Growing  wealth  and  increasing  population, 
and  the  levelling  up  of  a  democratic  period, 
meant  more  schools  and  colleges;  and  more 
schools  and  colleges  meant  the  direction  of  a 
greater  variety  of  minds  to  the  subjects  of 
education,  and  a  consequent  tendency  to  strike 
out  new  lines.  And,  granting  that  the  classics 
were  still  to  be  studied,  work  must  find  some- 
thing new  to  its  hand.  The  older  scholars,  the 
Bentleys  and  Porsons,  the  Lachmanns  and 
Hermanns,  the  Gaisfords  and  Linwoods  later, 
had  done  the  necessary  pioneer  work  in  the 
constitution  of  the  texts  of  the  great  classics, 
and  the  Munros  and  Mayors  and  Coningtons 
had  continued  the  opening  up  of  the  routes. 
Grammarians  who 

settled  Hotis  business — let  it  be! 

Properly  based  Oun — 
Gave  us  the  doctrine  of  the  enclitic  Ge, 

Dead  from  the  waist  down, 

had  left  indeed  much  that  could  be  done,  and 
has  been  nobly  done  by  the  Jebbs  and  Ellises 
and  Goodwins  who  came  a  little  later;  but  the 


72  A.  D.  GODLEY 

field  of  possibilities  within  the  sphere  of  the 
greatest  classics  was  certainly  diminished.  To 
speak  in  the  language  of  an  Alpinist,  the 
great  peaks  had  been  won:  the  routes  to  them 
were  clear,  as  regards  their  main  lines:  suc- 
ceeding climbers  must  go  farther  afield,  or 
invent  new  routes, — just  as  the  De  Saussures 
and  the  Leslie  Stephens  have  made  it  neces- 
sary for  the  modern  mountaineer,  who  wants 
to  associate  something  memorable  with  his 
name  to  try  how  near  he  can  go  to  breaking 
his  neck.  And  the  direction  of  new  lines  was 
indicated. 

Whatever  judgments  the  twentieth  century 
may  pass  on  the  nineteenth — and  it  seems 
that  they  are  pretty  severe,  at  least  in  Eng- 
land— even  the  ardent  spirits  of  to-day  will 
not  deny  that  ever  since  the  Romantic  move- 
ment one  guiding  motive  was  to  get  right 
away  from  cant  and  convention,  and  see  things 
as  they  are,  steadily  and  whole.  One  sees  that 
in  fiction,  in  Dickens  and  Thackeray  and 
George  Eliot.  One  sees  it  in  the  changed  spirit 
which  has  come  over  historical  research  in  the 
last    forty   years,    and   has   made   history   so 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND  73 

much  duller  reading  than  it  used  to  be,  be- 
cause the  historian's  object  is  now  merely  to 
arrive  at  the  truth,  while  it  used  to  be  to 
annoy  his  political  opponents.  Poetry  has 
great  difficulties  with  that  problem,  and  paint- 
ing too.  And  I  do  not  say  that  as  the  century 
progressed  to  its  end  this  meritorious  attempt 
has  not  produced  some  remarkable  and  not 
wholly  pleasing  results;  but  it  is  not  to  be  de- 
nied that  the  development  of  "realism"  in 
fiction  coincided  roughly  in  time  with  the 
endeavour  to  read  newer  and  truer  meanings 
into  a  classical  literature  which  was  accepted 
as  a  matter  of  course  from  its  very  familiarity. 
People  began  to  suspect  a  real  humanity — 
something  nearer  to  ourselves,  and  naturally 
explainable — in  what  was  before  regarded  as  a 
direct  and  somewhat  inhuman  emanation  from 
Parnassus.  What  our  rude  forefathers  easily 
accepted  began  to  bristle  with  problems. 
Homer,  of  course,  became  a  mere  playground 
for  critics  and  theorists  in  England,  as  he  had 
long  been  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  Thucy- 
dides  had  been  the  model  historian,  and 
Herodotus  the  father  of  lies.     Now,  I  under- 


74  A.  D.  GODLEY 

stand,  on  a  poll  of  scholars  it  is  Thucydides 
who  would  get  most  votes  for  deliberate 
mendacity,  for  Herodotus'  character  seems  to 
have  been,  on  the  whole,  reestablished.  And 
Horace,  whom  our  ancestors  thovightlessly  re- 
cited in  youth  and  pretended  to  read  for 
pleasure  in  mature  age,  was  seen  to  be  as  full 
of  cypher  phrases  and  hidden  meanings  as 
Shakespeare  under  the  lens  of  a  Baconian. 
Whatever  the  conclusion,  the  fact  remains  that 
scholars  are  reading  the  classics  with  opener 
minds  and  a  more  awakened  attention.  No 
wonder;  for  the  great  archaeological  discover- 
ies, besides  being  in  themselves  profoundly  in- 
teresting, were  shedding  new  light  on  Greek 
literature,  and  placing  the  Greek  of  historical 
and  legendary  times  in  a  wholly  different  posi- 
tion. What  has  been  regarded  as  gratuitous 
invention  appeared  now  as  an  echo  from  an 
earlier  world — the  adornment  and  transmis- 
sion of  dim,  prehistoric  stories;  Greece  was 
an  intermediary  between  us  and  the  earlier 
civilization  of  Cnossos  and  Mycenae  and  the 
Troad.  Nothing  could  supply  better  food  for 
the  imagination.     Altogether,  with  the  open- 


CLASSICAI.  STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND  75 

ing  of  new  vistas,  Greek  history  and  Greek 
scholarship  became  a  much  more  exciting 
business  than  it  had  been  in  the  old  days  when 
Thucydides  was  presented  to  schoolboys  and 
undergraduates  as  a  series  of  exercises  in  syn- 
tax, and  Greek  tragedy  formed  the  mind  by  a 
study  of  metrical  rules  and  exceptions. 

Far  be  it  from  me,  or  from  any  English 
critic,  to  decry  or  disparage  the  "grand  old 
fortifying  classical  curriculum."  It  has  played 
its  part,  and  a  very  important  one,  in  English 
education,  and,  one  may  really  say,  in  the 
making  of  English  history.  For  a  long  time 
classical  culture,  as  it  was  understood,  repre- 
sented practically  the  whole  of  the  secondary 
education  enjoyed  or  suffered  by  our  govern- 
ing classes.  And  least  of  all  ought  an  Oxonian 
to  speak  lightly  of  it;  for  its  earliest  habitat 
was  in  the  university,  and  I  think  I  may  say 
especially  in  the  University  of  Oxford.  It  was 
there,  I  mean,  that  some  knowledge  of  Greek 
and  Latin  began  to  be  associated  with  the 
status  of  a  gentleman;  and  both  the  status 
of  a  gentleman  and  the  study  of  Latin  and 
Greek  have  been  variously  affected  by  it.   The 


76  A.  D.  GODLEY 

eighteenth  century  is  an  unpopular  period — 
even  now,  when  the  nineteenth,  which  was 
always  cavilling  at  it,  is  itself  falling  into  some 
disrepute — and  one  does  not  readily  associate 
beneficent  changes  with  it,  least  of  all  in  the 
University  of  Oxford,  which  has  been  sup- 
posed to  represent  the  eighteenth  century  at  its 
worst  and  blackest.  Nevertheless,  this 
maligned  period  was  the  parent  of  many  re- 
forms, or  changes,  for  which  the  nineteenth 
century  afterwards  got  the  credit;  and  one 
of  these  was  certainly  a  great  change  in  the 
condition  of  universities.  Educationally  and 
socially,  Oxford  was  profoundly  modified ;  and 
it  was  the  coincidence  of  the  educational  with 
the  social  alternative  which  brought  about  the 
state  of  things  with  which  one  is  familiar, — 
the  idea  of  the  classics  being  a  necessary  part 
of  the  education  of  a  gentleman.  The  middle 
of  the  century  found  Oxford,  one  may  say, 
with  no  university  curriculum  of  any  profitable 
kind.  There  were  exercises  for  a  degree;  but 
they  consisted  mainly  in  the  repetition  of  stock 
formulae,  founded  on  the  logic  of  the  mediaeval 
schoolmen.    Practically,  so  far  as  the  univer- 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND  77 

sity  was  concerned,  a  man  might  leave  Oxford 
as  ignorant  of  literature  as  he  had  come  to  it. 
It  is  very  creditable  to  the  college  teachers  of 
that  day  that,  with  no  encouragement  but  their 
own  sense  of  what  was  right  and  proper,  they 
did  inaugurate  a  kind  of  classical  renaissance. 
It  was  not  a  period,  I  think,  of  profound  or 
abstruse  classical  learning.  But  young  men 
were  encouraged  to  read  a  good  deal  of  the 
great  authors,  and  elegant  scholarship  was  cul- 
tivated. Colleges  competed  with  each  other 
in  the  making  of  Latin  verses,  an  art  which 
indeed  had  an  early  popularity  even  in  Oxford. 
It  was  all  part  of  the  civilizing  process,  and 
came  all  the  more  naturally  as  such,  because  it 
happened  that  about  1750,  or  so,  the  Oxford 
colleges  were  becoming,  for  good  or  evil,  in 
great  measure  "Finishing  Academies  for 
Young  Gentlemen,"  at  any  rate  were  becom- 
ing much  more  the  special  preserve  of  the  so- 
called  upper  classes  than  had  previously  been 
the  case.  So  it  was  that,  as  many  colleges 
catered  for  the  governing  classes,  the  govern- 
ing classes  came  to  reckon  elegant  scholarship 
as  their  own  peculiar  attribute. 


78  A.  D.  GODI.EY 

When  Gibbon,  in  the  rather  grudging 
pahnodia  in  which  he  takes  back  some  part  of 
his  attack  on  the  university  (founded,  it  should 
be  remembered,  on  some  very  juvenile  impres- 
sions of  a  short  residence  at  Magdalen), — 
when  Gibbon  says  that  learning  has  become  "a 
duty,  a  pleasure,  and  even  a  fashion,"  it  is 
noticeable  that  the  foundation  to  which  he 
is  especially  referring  is  Christ  Church,  then, 
as  afterwards,  the  special  training-ground  for 
sprigs  of  nobility,  and  those  who  wish  to  culti- 
vate the  society  of  "the  great."  Such  were  the 
early  days  of  classical  scholarship  at  Oxford; 
and  this  kind  of  revival  was  fixed  and  stereo- 
typed when  the  university,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  established  its  first 
honor  examination.  Classical  scholarship 
was  duly  recognized  from  the  earliest  begin- 
ning of  a  Litterae  Humaniores  examination; 
though  some  critics  considered  that  the  Aris- 
totelian logic  should  have  been  ousted  alto- 
gether instead  of  being  left  as  a  partner  to 
literature.  Anyhow,  such  knowledge  of  Greek 
and  Latin  as  sufficed  for  the  gaining  of  a  class 
at  Oxford  was  now  endowed  with  additional 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND  79 

prestige,  because  academic  honors  were  rec- 
ognized as  a  sure  road  to  later  success.  In 
political  and  ecclesiastical  circles  especially, 
young  men  who  had  distinguished  themselves 
at  the  university  were  much  in  demand.  Greek 
scholarship,  as  it  has  been  said,  led  not  only  to 
knowledge  of  the  means  of  salvation  in  the 
next  world,  but  to  positions  of  emolument  in 
this.  Fellows  of  colleges  who  wanted  church 
preferment  edited  Greek  plays.  I  fear  bishops 
have  other  qualifications  now.  In  and  outside 
the  church  some  sort  of  classical  knowledge 
was  the  appanage  of  the  governing  classes.  In 
"Friendship's  Garland"  M.  Arnold  depicts  the 
Rev.  Esau  Hittall,  the  sporting  parson  of  the 
mid- Victorian  era,  whose  claims  to  culture 
rested  on  a  legendary  copy  of  verses  ("longs 
and  shorts")  on  the  Calydonian  boar.  If  a 
man  had  no  other  considerable  claims  to  re- 
spect, he  was,  if  an  elegant  scholar,  entitled  to 
look  down  on  those  who,  like  Shakespeare,  had 
small  Latin  and  less  Greek.  You  may  remem- 
ber Thackeray's  somewhat  ungentle  picture 
of  a  Fellow  of  a  College,  often  drunk  and  quite 
useless  to  the  world  (as  Thackeray  says)  when 


80  A.  D.  GODLEY 

sober,  who  still  considers  that  he  is  something 
above  ordinary  mortals  because  he  can  turn 
anything  in  the  world  into  Greek  iambics. 

So  classical  culture  was  the  fashion;  parlia- 
mentary oratory  was  tricked  out  with  classical 
quotations;  the  House,  less  candid,  or  less  vir- 
tuous than  ours,  must  at  least  pretend  to 
understand  its  Virgil  and  Horace.  The  second 
Aeneid,  I  have  been  told,  furnishes  the  great 
majority  of  the  Latin  parliamentary  quota- 
tions. Mr.  Gladstone,  in  his  day  the  typical, 
brilliant  young  politician,  fresh  from  the  tri- 
umphs of  the  schools,  continued  the  habit  of 
quotation  through  his  life ;  and  I  have  heard  it 
said  that  he  was  the  only  speaker  who  in  his 
later  years  could  venture  to  quote  Greek  in  the 
House.  We  have  changed  all  that  now.  Per- 
haps their  association  with  a  ruling  clique  has 
given  the  classics  an  unpleasant  flavor  of  aris- 
tocracy. Perhaps  a  knowledge  of  extinct  and 
mysterious  tongues  implies  sinister  designs. 
Anyhow,  for  whatever  reason,  an  acquaintance 
with  even  Latin  and  a  fortiori  Greek  is  sup- 
posed to  corrupt  democratic  virtue.  It  is  a 
fact  that  Greek  literature  is  singularly  out- 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND  81 

spoken,  and  plain  speaking  is  not  always 
agreeable  to  democracies, — English  democra- 
cies, I  mean,  of  course. 

Now-a-days,  the  old  undisputed  prerogative 
of  a  classical  education  is  extinct.  Classical 
study  is  fighting  for  its  life,  with  very  credita- 
ble success,  so  far,  and,  as  I  said,  the  exercise 
is  quite  good  for  its  muscles.  Naturally,  no 
result  has  been  achieved  which  one  can  con- 
sider permanent.  There  is  no  finality,  for- 
tunately, in  educational  matters.  But  it  is 
perhaps  worth  while  to  register  the  state  of 
things  at  this  particular  moment  in  England. 
So  far  the  result  of  the  battle  amounts  to  this: 
in  nearly  all  secondary  schools,  Latin  main- 
tains its  position  as  a  necessary  part  of  the 
curriculum.  It  is  for  the  moment  fairly 
secure.  The  Homeric  combats  of  to-day 
rather  centre  round  Greek.  The  modern  sides 
of  our  public  schools  do  not  teach  Greek;  and 
from  many  secondary  schools  it  has  been  ban- 
ished altogether.  In  the  universities,  its  fate 
trembles  in  the  balance.  Most  of  the  newer 
foundations  have  settled  the  matter  for  the 
present :  their  students  may  begin  and  continue 


82  A.  D.  GODLEY 

Greekless.  Oxford  and  Cambridge  still  stand 
firm  and  make  some  modicum  of  Greek  a  nec- 
essary part  of  their  initial  examination.  This 
is  not  always  a  popular  attitude.  During  the 
battle  which  has  been  raging  now  intermit- 
tently for  ten  years  and  more,  we  have  been 
told  the  truth  about  ourselves  with  remarkable 
candor,  and  our  future  has  been  painted  in 
very  lurid  colors.  We  are  the  homes  of 
dead  languages  and  undying  prejudice. 
We  are  obstacles  in  the  path  of  progress. 
Multi-millionaires  will  not  assist  our  poverty, 
and  eventually  the  State  will  make  a  clean 
sweep  of  our  colleges,  and  start  us  afresh  on 
lines  more  in  harmony  with  the  best  traditions 
of  democracy.  These  threats  are  backed  up 
by  the  sweetly  reasonable  and  enlightened  per- 
sons who  love  Greek  so  much  that  they  cannot 
bear  to  associate  it  with  a  compulsion  which 
runs  counter  to  our  finer  instincts;  nobody,  in 
fact,  ought  to  be  compelled  to  learn  anything, 
— except  perhaps  a  little  mathematics.  And 
compulsion,  they  say,  is  quite  unnecessary ;  for 
they  refuse  to  believe  that  the  world  will  ever 
not  wish  to  learn  Greek.     Somehow  or  other 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND  83 

advocacy  of  compulsory  Greek  has  come  to  be 
identified  with  a  reactionary  obscurantist  habit 
of  mind.  I  have  heard  it  said,  "so  and  so  is 
a  Liberal  in  politics:  very  strange  that  he 
should  be  in  favour  of  retaining  Greek  in 
Responsions !"  Political  terms  are  strange 
things  in  their  use  and  abuse.  In  England 
Liberal  is  a  political  term,  liberal  is  a  moral 
one:  but  what  of  that?  It  is  only  to  be  ex- 
pected that  we  should  get  credit  for  liberality, 
when  it  is  only  Liberalism  after  all. 

The  defenders  of  compulsory  Greek  at  Ox- 
ford (and  I  suppose  I  may  speak  for  Cam- 
bridge too)  are  not  all  of  them  merely 
hidebound  pedants,  timid  reactionaries,  dull 
obscurantists.  They  hardly  look  forward  to  a 
period  when  the  British  workman  will  demand 
a  knowledge  of  Greek  with  the  same  enthu- 
siasm as  that  with  which  he  now  demands  beer. 
But  they  do  hold  that  our  civilization  would 
suffer  if  Greek  ceased  to  be  fairly  widespread 
and  became  the  study  of  a  few  savants,  like 
Sanskrit.  They  see  that  Greek  suffers  in 
schools  (in  some,  perishes  altogether)  where 
it  is  not  supported  by  universities;  and  they 


84  A.  D.  GODLEY 

see,  too,  that  when  Greek  goes  Latin  is  apt 
to  go  too.  It  is,  of  course,  impossible  that  all 
universities  should  include  Greek  in  their  ex- 
aminations, as  of  course  it  is  neither  possible 
nor  desirable  that  all  schools  should  teach  it. 
But  it  does  need  protection.  "There  are  few 
studies  which  it  would  be  so  easy  to  lose  as  that 
of  Greek,  few  which  it  would  be  so  hard  to  re- 
gain" (Conington)  ;  and  that  protection  can 
only  be  given  by  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  In 
these  circumstances  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
still  insist  on  Greek.  But  let  the  facts  be 
noted:  one  often  hears  garbled  accounts. 
Greek  is  only,  for  everyone,  a  part  of  the  initial 
examination, — an  examination  which  can  be 
passed  before  the  candidate  comes  into  resi- 
dence at  Oxford.  After  that,  the  passman, 
the  man  who  aims  at  no  academic  honors, 
must  certainly  offer  the  classics  as  part  of  his 
curriculum;  but  the  honors  man  need  never 
open  a  Greek  or  Latin  book  during  the  whole 
period  of  his  residence.  Thus  the  much- 
abused  "burden  of  Greek"  does  not  weigh  very 
heavily  on  the  student.  A  natural  science  can- 
didate must  certainly  get  up  an  acquaintance 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND  85 

with  a  couple  of  Greek  plays  or  so,  and  a  little 
Greek  grammar.  But  he  can  do  this  before  he 
comes  into  residence;  once  at  Oxford  he  can 
devote  himself  entirely  to  any  "ology"  that  he 
pleases,  without  further  interruption.  And 
some  of  his  most  eminent  leaders  say  that  the 
interruption,  such  as  it  is,  does  him  no  harm, 
but  rather  good.    These  are  thorny  subjects. 

The  controversy  has  really  been  creditable 
to  both  sides.  It  shows,  after  all,  how  zealous 
we  are  about  education,  and  that  is  the  great 
thing;  and  if  universities  have  come  in  for 
hard  knocks,  they  have  only  to  expect  it :  suf- 
fering is  the  badge  of  all  their  tribe.  I  should 
not  leave  this  subject  without  acknowledging 
the  great  help  which  the  "defenders  of  Greek" 
have  received  from  America, — ^sympathy 
shown  in  printed  words  or  viva  voce.  Espe- 
cially, coming  as  the  help  does  from  that  coun- 
try, it  has  done  a  great  deal  to  show  that  the 
cause  is  not  one  of  irrational,  pig-headed 
conservatism. 

We  may  claim,  as  I  said,  to  have  in  view  the 
wide  dissemination  of  some  sort  of  Greek  cul- 
ture,— Greek  for  science  men  is  one  way  to 


86  A.  D.  GODLEY 

that.  Another,  and  a  less  controversial 
method,  is  to  popularize  the  classics  educa- 
tionally by  doing  what  we  can  to  adopt  our 
classical  curriculum  to  the  needs  of  the  average 
man,  who  is  not  going  to  be  a  specialist  in  any 
particular  line  of  study.  We  have  him  to 
think  of, — perhaps  even  more  than  the  serious 
student.  And  for  him,  what  is  a  classical  cur- 
riculum? One  is  at  once  confronted  with  a 
number  of  excellent  maxims,  all  applicable  to 
the  matter  in  hand,  and  for  the  most  part 
mutually  destructive :  a  little  knowledge,  says 
one,  is  a  dangerous  thing:  tt\4ov  rjixia-v  TrdpTos 
and  juLTjSev  oiyav  says  another.  "Good  are  the 
Ethics,  I  wis:  good  absolute:  not  for  me 
though" — says  the  not  very  serious  student  in 
A.  H.  Clough's  poem.  Things  absolutely  ex- 
cellent may  be  relatively  embarrassing.  While 
the  productivity  of  our  writers  on  classical 
subjects  is  an  excellent  thing,  and  the  exam- 
ination system  if  not  excellent,  appears  to  me 
for  the  present  to  be  indispensable, — yet  in- 
conveniences arise  from  both.  There  is  the 
danger,  for  the  average  student  of  the  classics 
at  our  schools  and  universities,  of  a  kind  of  in- 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND  87 

tellectual  indigestion  produced  by  a  too  rash 
indulgence  in  the  pleasures  of  the  library.  He 
wants  to  have  some  kind  of  knowledge  of  part 
of  Greek  and  Roman  literature,  some  acquaint- 
ance with  the  best  that  antiquity  can  give  him; 
and  it  is  all  served  up  to  him  in  a  highly  at- 
tractive and  stimulating  form.  So  many 
master  hands  are  employed  in  cooking  the 
classics  for  him;  there  are  so  many  books, 
English  and  American,  which  are  delightful 
to  read,  and  so  many  lecturers  who  present  the 
theories  of  the  learned  in  an  interesting  way, 
like  powder  in  jam;  new  lights  on  Aegean  civ- 
ilization, new  lights  on  Homer  and  Virgil, 
brilliant  literary  appreciations  of  Greek 
tragedy, — any  one  might  be  beguiled  by  them, 
and,  of  course,  it  is  all  to  the  good.  The 
classics  have  no  doubt  been  enormously  popu- 
larized. But  a  classical  curriculum  ought  not 
to  mean,  primarily,  reading  translations,  or 
books  about  books;  all  the  "Realien"  and  all 
the  brilliant  speculations  in  the  world  are  not 
quite  the  same  thing,  do  not  give  the  same 
mental  exercise,  as  reading  the  classics  for 
one's  self :  and  life  is  so  short.    One  realizes  the 


88  A.  D.  GODLEY 

brevity  of  life  especially  when  sixth-form  mas- 
ters, themselves  interested  in  modern  research 
and  criticism,  try  to  give  their  pupils  some 
idea  at  second  hand  of  what  is  going  on  in  the 
intellectual  firmament  where  professors  live, — 
where  they  lie  (or  at  least  develop  pleasing 
hypotheses)  beside  their  nectar,  and  hurl  bolts 
at  one  another. 

Once  you  embark  on  that  "Cretan  sea"  of 
theories  about  Aegean  civilization,  or  the  inner 
meaning  of  Horace,  or  the  relation  of  Eurip- 
ides to  Athenian  literary  coteries,  you  are  in 
an  atmosphere  of  controversial  statements  and 
somewhat  enterprising  logic  which  is  rather 
too  rarefied  for  the  young.  They  have  not 
the  means  of  judging  between  the  learned: 
the  collation,  the  cold  collation,  of  rival  the- 
ories is  strong  meat  for  babes.  Is  it  even  quite 
right  for  young  students,  not  yet  sure  of  them- 
selves in  mathematics  and  logic,  to  move  in  a 
world  where  two  plus  two  sometimes  equal 
five  (or,  let  us  optimistically  say,  four  and  one 
half)  and  knowledge  advances  by  a  bold  use 
of  the  petitio  principii?  Personally  I  cannot 
but  think  it  is  rather  a  pity  that  there  is  a 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND  89 

tendency  to  disparage  composition  in  the  dead 
languages,  to  sacrifice  it  to  general  reading 
about  them.  Latin  verse-making  may  pro- 
duce, as  Dean  Farrar  said,  a  "finical  fine- 
lady  ism  of  the  intellect";  it  may  be  an  exotic 
which  flourishes  most  luxuriantly  in  the  thin 
artificial  soil  of  vain  and  second  rate  minds: 
but  at  least  it  does  teach  a  knowledge  of  the 
language. 

If  too  much  reading  of  books  about  books 
is  not  an  unmitigated  blessing,  still  less  is  it  so 
when  the  end  and  object  of  reading  is  an  exam- 
ination. Getting  up  facts  for  examination 
purposes  is  rather  a  weary  business;  cram- 
ming theories  has  really  nothing  to  be  said 
for  it;  and  cramming  some  one  else's  literary 
appreciation  is  the  worst  of  all.  There  is  this 
great  justification  of  the  examinational  sys- 
tem,— that  it  shows  a  man  at  his  worst  and  pro- 
tects the  public  by  destroying  any  illusions 
about  him.  And  if  papers  of  questions  are  not 
well  adapted  to  a  course  of  general  reading 
about  classical  antiquity,  what  is  to  be  said 
about  their  relation  to  specialized  studies  and 
"intensive  culture"?    One  need  not  enlarge  on 


90  A.  D.  GODI.EY 

the  miscellaneous  activities  of  modern  special- 
ism,— especially  in  America, — on  the  admir- 
able seminar  system,  and  the  microscopic  in- 
dustry which  is  filling  the  world  of  to-day  with 
such  a  multitude  of  monographs.  Nobody  can 
regard  otherwise  than  with  admiration  the  im- 
mense industry  which  our  rising  generation  of 
students  is  putting  into  classical  research, — 
provided  always  that  the  youthful  specialist,  in 
his  passion  for  intensive  culture,  gives  himself 
time  enough  to  acquire  that  competent  knowl- 
edge of  Latin  and  Greek,  and  that  general 
acquaintance  with  ancient  history,  without 
which  his  researches  lose  some  of  their  value. 
Seminar  work  is  premature  when  a  man  does 
not  yet  know  Greek.  But  here,  again,  we  are 
face  to  face  with  the  examination  system.  Ex- 
amination papers  are  set  by  examiners  who  are 
only  human  (even  if  the  candidate  holds  a  dif- 
ferent opinion  at  times)  and  naturally  welcome 
the  opportunity  of  showing  that  they  too  are 
acquainted  with  those  monuments  of  erudition 
which  choke  their  waste-paper  baskets.  Any- 
how, it  is  only  natural  that  the  specialist  should 
set  the  pace,  and  the  candidate  who  is  not  a 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND  91 

specialist  has  to  keep  up  as  well  as  he  can. 
Now  it  is  eternally  creditable  to  a  student  to 
ascertain  by  his  own  careful  research  precisely, 
^  let  us  say,  how  many  times  KaC  occurs  in 
Thucydides.  He  has  gone  through  an  exer- 
cise which  could  hardly  be  bettered  by  a  tread- 
mill, and  at  least  he  has  read  his  Thucydides. 
But  there  is  very  little  mental  or  moral  ele- 
vation to  be  gained  from  acquiring  from  some 
one  else's  labors  the  result  of  those  investiga- 
tions in  a  tabulated  form.  The  important 
thing  is  that  as  large  a  number  as  possible  of 
intelligent  men  should  be  trained  in  the  class- 
ics; but  they  will  not  begin  to  do  this  if  they 
are  to  be  forced  into  a  specialism  which  is  un- 
congenial to  them,  and  because  it  is  uncon- 
genial, and,  for  them,  leads  to  nothing,  will 
never  be  of  any  profit.  It  is  well  that  uni- 
versities should  insist  on  teaching  what  the 
world  calls  useless;  but  there  are  different 
kinds  of  inutility,  some  profitable  and  some 
not. 

However  the  classics  may  be  popularized 
for  cultured  circles  in  the  world,  in  universities 
and  schools  they  are,  I  think,  endangered  by 


92  A.  D.  GODLEY 

the  wholly  admirable  activities  of  their  teach- 
ers. We  have  our  Classical  Review  and 
Classical  Quarterly;  we  have  our  Classical  As- 
sociations; but  we  are  in  danger  of  dragging 
the  average  man  too  uncomfortably  at  our 
chariot-wheels.  If  we  want  to  protect  our- 
selves against  the  people  who  make  a  great 
outcry  about  schoolboys  giving  too  much 
time  to  the  classics, — time  which  should  be 
wholly  devoted,  they  say,  to  useful  subjects, — 
I  should  suggest  very  humbly  that  teachers  of 
the  higher  classes  in  schools  forget  for  the 
moment  the  demand  of  the  future  palaeogra- 
pher and  archaeologist.  He  will  look  after 
himself  in  due  course.  They  should  really 
shorten  the  hours  of  instruction  in  Latin  and 
Greek,  and  content  themselves  with  a  thor- 
ough grounding  in  the  elements  of  both  lan- 
guages, as  well  as,  of  course,  in  the  broad  lines 
of  ancient  history;  and  a  thorough  grounding 
in  the  languages  I  take  to  include  practice  in 
Latin  and  Greek  composition,  which  is  to  my 
mind,  for  most  boys,  a  much  pleasanter,  more 
stimulating,  and  more  educative  exercise  than 
hearing  about  the  theories    of    the    learned. 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES  IN  ENGLAND  93 

Given  good  teaching,  a  sufficient  familiarity 
with  the  languages  might,  one  would  think,  be 
imparted  without  taking  up  a  disproportion- 
ate amount  of  school  time.  Then  let  the  boy 
who  elects  to  take  up  classics  at  his  univer- 
sity as  a  subject  for  his  degree  not  be  en- 
couraged to  cover  quite  so  much  ground  as  he 
attempts — under  the  stress  of  examinations — 
at  present;  let  him  broaden  his  studies,  of 
course,  but  only  carry  them  (like  Mr.  Casau- 
bon)  up  to  a  certain  point:  not  being  intro- 
duced to  the  world  of  advanced  study  and 
research  till  he  has  taken  his  degree.  Then  is 
the  time  for  him  to  judge  between  Minoan  and 
post-Minoan,  and  to  embark  on  such  archseo- 
logical  or  palseographical  exercises  as  captivate 
his  fancy:  exercises  which  are  delightful  and 
profitable  for  the  real  student,  but  which 
should  be  kept  as  long  as  possible — until  they 
show  results  which  are  really  important  to  our 
understanding  of  classical  literature — out  of 
the  cold  atmosphere  of  examinations.  But  it 
is  to  the  researches  of  our  trained  specialists 
that  we  look  for  the  advancement  of  learning ; 
and  those  universities  which  recognize  the  value 


94  A.  D.  GODLEY 

of  graduate  work  and  its  distinction  from  an 
undergraduate  course  are  best  serving  that 
great  cause.  Never  was  classical  culture  so 
popular.  It  is  for  us  so  to  direct  it  that  it  may 
inspire  indeed  the  industry  of  the  savant,  but, 
what  is  more  important,  may  be  not  dissevered 
from  the  life  of  the  nation. 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  IN  THE 
SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  IN  THE 

SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY^ 

By  Arthur  E.  Shipley 

With  one  or  two  exceptions — astronomy  on 
the  physical  side,  human  anatomy  on  the  bio- 
logical— the  reawakening  in  science  lagged  a 
century  or  more  behind  the  renascence  in  lit- 
erature and  in  art.  What  the  leaders  of 
thought  and  of  practice  in  the  arts  of  writing, 
of  painting  and  of  sculpture  in  western  Europe 
were  effecting  in  the  latter  part  of  the  fifteenth 
and  throughout  the  sixteenth  century  began  to 
be  paralleled  in  the  investigations  of  the 
physical  laws  of  nature  only  at  the  end  of  the 
sixteenth  century  and  throughout  the  first 
three  quarters  of  the  seventeenth. 

Writing  broadly,  we  may  say  that,  during 
the  Stewart  time,  the  sciences,  as  we  now  class 

*  This  address,  revised  and  enlarged,  formed  part  of  a 
chapter  in  the  eighth  volume  of  The  Cambridge  History  of 
English  Literature. 

97 


98  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

them,  were  slowly  but  surely  separating  them- 
selves out  from  the  general  mass  of  learning, 
segregating  into  secondary  units;  and,  from 
a  general  amalgam  of  scientific  knowledge, 
mathematics,  astronomy,  physics,  chemistry, 
geology,  mineralogy,  zoology,  botany,  agricul- 
ture, even  physiology  (the  offspring  of  anat- 
omy and  chemistry)  were  beginning  to  assert 
claims  to  individual  and  distinct  existence.  It 
was  in  the  Stewart  reigns  that,  in  England  at 
any  rate,  the  specialist  began  to  emerge  from 
those  who  hitherto  had  "taken  all  knowledge 
to  be"  their  "province." 

Certain  of  the  sciences,  such  as  anatomy, 
physiology  and,  to  a  great  extent,  zoology  and 
botany,  had  their  inception  in  the  art  of  medi- 
cine. But  the  last  two  owed  much  to  the 
huntsman  and  the  agriculturist.  During  the 
preceding  century,  the  great  Belgian  anatom- 
ist Vesalius  had  broken  loose  from  the  bond  of 
the  written  word  which  had  strangled  research 
for  a  thousand  years,  and  had  looked  at  the 
structure  of  the  human  body  for  himself;  he 
taught  what  he  could  himself  see  and  what  he 
could  show  to  his  pupils.    Under  him,  anatomy 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  99 

was  the  first  of  the  natural  sciences  to  break 
loose  from  the  scholastic  domination  which 
had  hitherto  ever  placed  authority  above 
experiment. 

As  anatomy  on  the  biological  side,  so 
astronomy  on  the  physical,  led  the  way. 
Copernicus  had  claimed  that  the  sun  was  the 
center  of  our  system;  but  it  was  not  until  the 
following  century,  when  the  truth  of  his  views 
was  mathematically  proved,  that,  first,  men  of 
science,  and,  later,  the  world  at  large,  aban- 
doned the  views  of  Ptolemy,  which,  like  those 
of  Aristotle,  of  Galen  and  of  Hippocrates,  had 
obsessed  the  learned  world  since  classical  times. 

The  great  outburst  of  scientific  enquiry 
which  occurred  during  the  seventeenth  century 
was  partly  the  result,  and  partly  the  cause,  of 
the  invention  of  numerous  new  methods  and 
innumerable  new  instruments,  by  the  use  of 
which  advance  in  natural  knowledge  was 
immensely  facilitated.  Early  in  the  century 
(1614),  Napier  of  Merchiston  had  made 
known  his  discovery  of  logarithms,  and  log- 
arithmic tables  were  first  published  in  1617. 
Seven  years  later,  the  slide  rule,  which  today 


100  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

plays  a  large  part  in  physical  and  engineering 
science,  was  invented  by  Edmund  Gunter. 
Decimals  were  coming  into  use  and,  at  the 
close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  algebra  was  be- 
ing written  in  the  notation  we  still  employ. 
William  Gilbert,  physician  to  Queen  Elizabeth, 
published  his  experiments  on  electricity  and 
magnetism  in  the  last  year  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Galileo  was  using  his  newly  con- 
structed telescope;  and,  for  the  first  time, 
Jupiter's  satellites,  the  mountains  in  the 
moon  and  Saturn's  rings  were  seen  by  human 
eye.  The  barometer,  the  thermometer  and 
the  air  pump,  and,  later,  the  compound 
microscope,  all  came  into  being  at  the  earlier 
part  of  our  period,  and  by  the  middle  of  the 
century  were  in  the  hands  of  whoever  cared 
to  use  them.    Pepys,  in  1664,  acquired 

a  microscope  and  a  scotoscope.  For  the  first  I  did 
give  him  £5.  10.  0,  a  great  price,  but  a  most  curious 
bauble  it  is,  and  he  says,  as  good,  nay,  the  best  he 
knows  in  England.  The  other  he  gives  me,  and  is 
of  value;  and  a  curious  curiosity  it  is  to  discover 
objects  in  a  dark  room  with. 

Two  years  later,  on  19  August  1666  "comes 
by  agreement  Mr.  Reeves,  bringing  me  a  Ian- 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  :;0l 

tern" — it  must  have  been  a  magic  lantern — 
"with  pictures  in  glass,  to  make  strange  things 
appear  on  a  wall,  very  pretty." 

As  we  pass  from  Elizabethan  to  Stewart 
times,  we  pass,  in  most  branches  of  literature, 
from  men  of  genius  to  men  of  talent,  clever 
men,  but  not,  to  use  a  Germanism,  epoch- 
making  men.  In  science,  however,  where 
England  led  the  world,  the  descent  became  an 
ascent.  We  leave  Dr.  Dee  and  Edward  Kelly, 
and  we  arrive  at  Harvey  and  Newton. 

The  gap  between  the  medieval  science 
which  still  obtained  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  time 
and  the  science  of  the  Stewarts  was  bridged  by 
Francis  Bacon,  in  a  way,  but  only  in  a  way. 
He  was  a  reformer  of  the  scientific  method. 
He  was  no  innovator  in  the  inductive  method; 
others  had  preceded  him,  but  he,  from  his  great 
position,  clearly  pointed  out  that  the  writers 
and  leaders  of  his  time  observed  and  recorded 
facts  in  favour  of  ideas  other  than  those  hither- 
to sanctioned  by  authority. 

Bacon  left  a  heritage  to  English  science. 
His  writings  and  his  thoughts  are  not  always 
clear,  but  he  firmly  held,  and,  with  the  au- 


102  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

thority  which  his  personal  eminence  gave  him, 
firmly  proclaimed,  that  the  careful  and  system- 
atic investigation  of  natural  phenomena  and 
their  accurate  record  would  give  to  man  a 
power  in  this  world  which,  in  his  time,  was 
hardly  to  be  conceived.  What  he  believed, 
what  he  preached,  he  did  not  practise.  "I  only 
sound  the  clarion,  but  I  enter  not  into  the 
battle";  and  yet  this  is  not  wholly  true,  for, 
on  a  wintry  March  day,  1626,  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Barnet,  he  caught  the  chill  which 
ended  his  life  while  stuffing  a  fowl  with  snow, 
to  see  if  cold  would  delay  putrefaction.  Har- 
vey, who  was  working  whilst  Bacon  was  writ- 
ing, said  of  him:  "He  writes  philosophy  like 
a  Lord  Chancellor."  This,  perhaps,  is  true, 
but  his  writings  show  him  a  man,  weak  and 
pitiful  in  some  respects,  yet  with  an  abiding 
hope,  a  sustained  object  in  life,  one  who  sought 
through  evil  days  and  in  adverse  conditions 
"for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  relief  of  man's 
estate." 

Though  Bacon  did  not  make  any  one  single 
advance  in  natural  knowledge — though  his 
precepts,  as  Whewell  reminds  us,  "are  now 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  103 

practically  useless" — yet  he  used  his  great 
talents,  his  high  position,  to  enforce  upon  the 
world  a  new  method  of  wrenching  from  nature 
her  secrets  and,  with  tireless  patience  and  un- 
tiring passion,  impressed  upon  his  contem- 
poraries the  conviction  that  there  was  "a  new 
unexplored  Kingdom  of  Knowledge  within 
the  reach  and  grasp  of  man,  if  he  will  be 
humble  enough,  and  patient  enough,  and 
truthful  enough  to  occupy  it." 

The  most  sublime  of  English  poets  survived 
our  period  by  a  few  years.  A  comparison 
between  Dante's  and  Milton's  great  epics  af- 
fords some  indication  of  the  advance  in  knowl- 
edge of  this  world  and  in  the  outlook  on  a 
future  state  which  measures  the  progress  made 
between  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  seventeenth 
century.  As  a  poet  (and,  indeed,  often  in 
other  activities  of  his  life)  Milton  stood  above, 
or  at  least,  outside,  the  stream  of  tendency  of 
the  times  through  which  he  lived.  Yet,  in  his 
poems  (not  in  his  political  tractates — the  most 
ephemeral  of  all  literature)  we  see  effects  of 
the  rising  tide  of  science  on  literature. 

Milton,  one  must  never  forget — and  indeed. 


104  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

it  is  not  easy  to  do  so — was,  for  some  years,  a 
schoolmaster.  He  took  a  view  of  his  profes- 
sion which  even  now  would  be  thought  liberal; 
he  advocated  the  teaching  of  medicine,  agri- 
culture and  fortification,  and,  when  studying 
the  last  of  these,  remarked  that  it  would  be 
"seasonable  to  learn  the  use  of  the  Globes  and 
all  the  maps."  Like  Lord  Herbert  of  Cher- 
bury,  he  held  that  the  student  should  acquire 
some  knowledge  of  medicine,  he  should  know 
"the  tempers,  the  humors,  the  seasons  and 
how  to  manage  a  crudity."  Himself,  a  suf- 
ferer from  gout,  he  learnt,  at  any  rate,  the 
lesson  of  moderation.  Mathematics,  in  his 
curriculum,  led  to  the  "instrumental  science  of 
Trigonometry  and  from  thence  to  Fortifica- 
tion, Architecture,  Enginery  or  Navigation." 

At  the  time  of  the  writing  of  Paradise 
Lost,  the  learned  had  accepted  the  theory  of 
Copernicus,  although  the  mathematical  proof 
afforded  a  few  years  later  by  Newton  was  still 
lacking.  But  the  world  at  large  still  accepted 
the  Ptolemaic  system,  a  system  which,^  as  a 
schoolmaster,  Milton  taught.  Mark  Pattison 
has  pointed  out  that  these  two 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  105 

systems  confront  each  other  in  the  poem,  in  much 
the  same  relative  position  which  they  occupied  in  the 
mind  of  the  public.  The  ordinary,  habitual  mode  of 
speaking  of  celestial  phenomena  is  Ptolemaic;^  the 
conscious  or  doctrinal  exposition  of  the  same  phe- 
nomena is  Copernican.^ 

But  the  incongruity  between  these  two 
statements  is  no  greater  than  will  be  found 
today  in  authors  writing  of  subjects  still  suh 
judice.  Further,  we  must  not  forget  that 
Milton  never  saw  either  of  his  great  epics  in 
writing  or  in  print.  His  power  of  impressing 
his  visions  on  the  world  was,  however,  such  that 
Huxley  held  that  it  was  not  the  cosmogony  of 
Genesis  but  the  cosmogony  of  Milton  which 
had  enthralled  and  misled  the  world. 

More  distinctly  than  in  his  epics,  Milton, 
in  his  history,  showed  a  leaning  to  the  scientific 
method.  Firth  has  lately  told  us  that  "his 
conclusions  are  roughly  those  of  modern  schol- 
ars, and  his  reasoning  practically  that  of  a 
scientific  historian."  In  one  respect,  however, 
he  was  less  than  lukewarm.    He  had  no  sym- 

2  Mark  Pattison  cites  Paradise  Lost,  VII,  339-356;  III,  420- 
481.     And  yet,  in  1639,  Milton  had  visited  Galileo. 
^See  ibid.  VIII,  77,  122-140. 


106  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

pathy  with  antiquarian  researches  and  sneered 
at  those  "who  take  pleasure  to  be  all  their  life- 
time raking  the  foundations  of  old  abbeys  and 
cathedrals." 

To  turn  to  other  evidence,  the  better  diaries 
of  any  age  afford  us,  when  faithfully  written, 
as  fair  a  clue  as  do  the  dramatists  of  the  aver- 
age intelligent  man's  attitude  towards  the  gen- 
eral outlook  of  humanity  on  the  problems  of 
his  age,  as  they  presented  themselves  to 
society  at  large.  The  seventeenth  century 
was  unusually  rich  in  volumes  of  autobiogra- 
phy and  in  diaries  which  the  reading  world  will 
not  readily  let  die.  The  autobiography 
of  the  complaisant  Lord  Herbert  of  Cher- 
bury  gives  an  interesting  account  of  the 
education  of  a  highly-born  youth  at  the  end 
of  the  sixteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  Lord  Herbert  seems  to 
have  had  a  fair  knowledge  of  Latin  and  Greek 
and  of  logic  when,  in  his  thirteenth  year,  he 
went  up  to  University  College,  Oxford.  Later, 
he  "did  attain  the  knowledge  of  the  French, 
Italian  and  Spanish  languages,"  and,  also, 
learnt  to  sing  his  part  at  first  sight  in  music 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  107 

and  to  play  on  the  lute.  He  approved  of  "so 
much  logic  as  to  enable  men  to  distinguish  be- 
tween truth  and  falsehood  and  help  them  to 
discover  fallacies,  sophisms  and  that  which  the 
schoolmen  call  vicious  arguments" ;  and  this,  he 
considered,  should  be  followed  by  "some  good 
sum  of  philosophy."  He  held  it  also  requisite 
to  study  geography,  and  this  in  no  narrow 
sense,  laying  stress  upon  the  methods  of  gov- 
ernment, religions  and  manners  of  the  several 
states  as  well  as  on  their  relationships  inter  se 
and  their  policies.  Though  he  advocated  an 
acquaintance  with  "the  use  of  the  celestial 
globes,"  he  did  "not  conceive  yet  the  knowledge 
of  judicial  astronomy  so  necessary,  but  only 
for  general  predictions;  particular  events 
being  neither  intended  by  nor  collected  out  of 
the  stars."  Arithmetic  and  geometry  he 
thought  fit  to  learn,  as  being  most  useful  for 
keeping  accounts  and  enabling  a  gentleman  to 
understand  fortifications. 

Perhaps  the  most  characteristic  feature  of 
Lord  Herbert's  acquirements  was  his  knowl- 
edge of  medicine  and  subjects  allied  thereto. 
He  conceived  it  a  "fine  study,  and  worthy  a 


108  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

gentleman  to  be  a  good  botanic,  that  so  he 
may  know  the  nature  of  all  herbs  and  plants." 
Further,  "it  will  become  a  gentleman  to  have 
some  knowledge  in  medecine,  especially  the 
diagnostic  part";  and  he  urged  that  a  gentle- 
man should  know  how  to  make  medicines 
himself.  He  gives  us  a  list  of  the  "Pharmaco- 
paeias  and  anechodalies"  which  he  has  in  his 
own  library  and  certainly  he  had  a  knowledge 
of  anatomy  and  of  the  healing  art — he  refers 
to  a  wound  which  penetrated  to  his  father's 
"pia  mater,"  a  membrane  for  a  mention  of 
which  we  should  look  in  vain  among  the  rec- 
ords of  modern  ambassadors  and  gentlemen  of 
the  court.  His  knowledge,  however,  was  en- 
tirely empirical  and  founded  on  the  writings 
of  Paracelsus  and  his  followers;  nevertheless, 
he  prides  himself  on  the  cures  he  effected,  and, 
if  one  can  trust  the  veracity  of  so  self-satisfied 
an  amateur  physician,  they  certainly  fall  but 
little  short  of  the  miraculous. 

John  Evelyn,  another  example  of  a  well-to- 
do  and  widely  cultivated  man  of  the  world, 
was  acquainted  with  several  foreign  languages, 
including  Spanish  and  German,  and  was  in- 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  109 

terested  in  hieroglyphics.  He  studied  medi- 
cine in  1645  at  Padua,  and  there  acquired 
those  "rare  tables  of  veins  and  nerves"  which 
he  afterwards  gave  to  the  Royal  Society;  at- 
tended Le  Felure's  course  of  chemistry  at 
Paris  in  1647;  was  skilled  in  more  than  one 
musical  instrument,  learned  dancing  and, 
above  all,  devoted  himself  to  horticulture. 

When  travelling  abroad,  he  made  a  point  of 
visiting  the  "cabinets"  of  collectors,  for,  at  that 
time,  public  museums,  which,  in  fact,  grew 
out  of  these  cabinets,  were  non-existent.  The 
following  quotation  records  the  sort  of  curi- 
osities at  which  men  marvelled  in  the  year 
1645:— 

Feb.  4th.  We  were  invited  to  the  collection  of 
exotic  rarities  in  the  museum  of  Ferdinando  Im- 
perati,  a  Neapolitan  nobleman,  and  one  of  the  most 
observable  palaces  in  the  citty,  the  repository  of  in- 
comparable rarities.  Amongst  the  naturall  herbals 
most  remarkable  was  the  Byssus  marina  and  Pinna 
marina ;  the  male  and  female  cameleon ;  an  Onacratu- 
lus ;  an  extraordinary  greate  crocodile ;  some  of  the 
Orcades  Anates,  held  here  for  a  great  rarity ;  likewise 
a  salamander ;  the  male  and  female  Manucodiata,  the 
male  having  an  hollow  in  the  back,  in  wch  'tis  reported 
the  female  both  layes  and  hatches  her  egg;  the  man- 


110  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

dragoras  of  both  sexes ;  Papyrus  made  of  severall 
reedes,  and  some  of  silke;  tables  of  the  rinds  of  trees 
written  wth  Japoniq  characters ;  another  of  the 
branches  of  palme;  many  Indian  fruites;  a  chrystal 
that  had  a  quantity  of  uncongealed  water  within  its 
cavity ;  a  petrified  fisher's  net ;  divers  sorts  of  tarantu- 
las, being  a  monstrous  spider  with  lark-like  clawes, 
and  somewhat  bigger. 

But  Evelyn's  chief  contribution  to  science, 
as  already  indicated,  was  horticultural.  He 
was  devoted  to  his  garden,  and,  both  at  his 
native  Wotton,  and,  later,  at  Sayes  court, 
Deptford,  spent  much  time  in  planting  and 
planning  landscape  gardens,  then  much  the 
fashion. 

In  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the 
fact  that  "nitre"  promoted  the  growth  of  plants 
was  beginning  to  be  recognised.  Sir  Kenelm 
Digby  and  the  young  Oxonian  John  Mayow, 
experimented  de  Sal-Nitro;  and,  in  1675, 
Evelyn  writes:  "I  firmly  believe  that  where 
saltpetre  can  be  obtained  in  plenty  we  should 
not  need  to  find  other  composts  to  ameliorate 
our  ground."  His  well-known  Sylva,  pub- 
lished in  1664,  had  an  immediate  and  a  wide- 
spread effect,  and  was,  for  many  years,  the 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  111 

standard  book  on  the  subject  of  the  culture  of 
trees.  It  is  held  to  be  responsible  for  a  great 
outbreak  of  tree-planting.  The  introduction 
to  Nisbet's  edition  gives  figures  which  demon- 
strate the  shortage  in  the  available  supply  of 
oak  timber  during  the  seventeenth  century. 
The  charm  of  Evelyn's  style  and  the  practical 
nature  of  his  book,  which  ran  into  four  editions 
before  the  author's  death,  arrested  this  decline 
("be  aye  sticking  in  a  tree;  it  will  be  growing, 
Jock,  when  ye're  sleeping"  as  the  laird  of 
Dumbiedykes  counselled  his  son),  and  to  the 
Sylva  of  John  Evelyn  is  largely  due  the  fact 
that  the  oak  timber  used  for  the  British  ships 
which  fought  the  French  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury sufficed,  but  barely  sufficed,  for  the 
national  needs. 

Pepys,  whose  naive  and  frank  self -revela- 
tions have  made  him  the  most  popular  and 
the  most  frequently  read  of  diarists,  was  not 
quite  of  the  same  class  of  student  to  which 
Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury  or  John  Evelyn 
belonged.  But,  gifted  as  he  was  with  an  undy- 
ing and  insatiable  curiosity,  nothing  was  too 
trivial  or  too  odd  for  his  notice  and  his  record ; 


\ 


112  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

and,  being  an  exceptionally  able  and  hard- 
working government  servant,  he  took  great  in- 
terest in  anything  which  was  likely  to  affect 
the  navy.  He  discoursed  with  the  ingenious 
Dr.  Kuffler  "about  his  design  to  blow  up 
ships,"  noticed  "the  strange  nature  of  the  sea- 
water  in  a  dark  night,  that  it  seemed  hke  fire 
upon  every  stroke  of  the  oar" — an  effect  due, 
of  course,  to  phosphorescent  organisms  float- 
ing near  the  surface — and  interested  himself 
incessantly  in  marine  matters.  His  troubled 
eyesight  and  his  love  of  music  account  for  the 
attention  he  paid  to  optical  appliances,  the 
structure  of  the  eye,  musical  instruments  of 
every  kind  and  musical  notation;  for  this  last, 
he  seems  to  have  invented  a  mechanical  means 
of  composing  which  is  still  preserved  at  Mag- 
dalene College,  but  which  no  one  now  quite 
understands. 

Physiology  and  mortuary  objects  had,  for 
him,  an  interest  which  was  almost  morbid.  He 
is  told  that  "negroes  drounded  look  white,  and 
lose  their  blackness,  which  I  never  heard  be- 
fore," describes  how  "one  of  a  great  family  was 
.  .  .  hanged  with  a  silken  halter  ...  of  his 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  113 

own  preparing,  not  for  the  honour  only"  but 
because  it  strangles  more  quickly.  He  at- 
tended regularly  the  early  meetings  of  the 
Royal  Society  at  Gresham  College,  and 
showed  the  liveliest  interest  in  various  investi- 
gations on  the  transfusion  of  blood,  respira- 
tion under  reduced  air  pressure  and  many 
other  ingenious  experiments  and  observations 
by  Sir  George  Ent  and  others.  On  20  Janu- 
ary 1665,  he  took  home  Micrographia, 
Hooke's  book  on  microscopy — "a  most  excel- 
lent piece,  of  which  I  am  very  proud." 

Although  Pepys  had  no  scientific  training 
— he  only  began  to  learn  the  multiplication 
table  when  he  was  in  his  thirtieth  year,  but, 
later,  took  the  keenest  pleasure  in  teaching  it 
to  Mrs.  Pepys — he,  nevertheless,  attained  to 
the  presidentship  of  the  Royal  Society.  He 
had  always  delighted  in  the  company  of  "the 
virtuosos"  and,  in  1662,  three  years  after  he 
began  to  study  arithmetic,  he  was  admitted  a 
fellow  of  their — the  Royal' — Society.  In 
1681,  he  was  elected  president.  This  post  he 
owed,  not  to  any  genius  for  science,  or  to  any 
great  invention  or  generalisation,  but  to  his 


114  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

very  exceptional  powers  as  an  organiser  and 
as  a  man  of  business,  to  his  integrity  and  to 
the  abiding  interest  he  ever  showed  in  the 
cause  of  the  advancement  of  knowledge. 

If  we  pass  from  the  interest  taken  in  scien- 
tific progress  by  men  of  superior  intelligence 
to  the  obstacles  opposed  to  it  by  popular  ignor- 
ance and  superstition,  we  are  brought  face  to 
face  with  the  long-lived  crew  of  witches,  wiz- 
ards and  alchemists.  It  is  often  said  that  the 
more  rationalistic  outlook  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  due  to  Hobbes  and  others,  did  much 
to  discredit  these  practitioners.  But  the  obser- 
vant dwellers  in  our  British  cities  or  remote 
country  villages,  pestered  as  they  are  with 
advertisements  of  those  who  practise  palmis- 
try, and  of  those  who  predict  the  future  by 
crystal-gazing  or  by  the  fall  of  sand,  of  fol- 
lowers of  the  sporting  prophet,  and  of  far 
more  presumptuous  and  more  dangerous  im- 
postors, or  confronted  by  the  silent,  indomita- 
ble belief  of  the  rustic  in  the  witchery  of  his 
ancestors,  may  well  hold  the  opinion  that  the 
stock  of  superstition  is  a  constant  stock  and 
permeates  now,  as  it  did  in  Elizabeth's  time. 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  115 

every  class  of  society.  What  improvement 
there  was  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  it  is 
extremely  doubtful  if  there  was  much,  was 
largely  due  to  the  advent  of  James  I  and  the 
later  rise  of  puritanism,  associated  as  they 
were  with  the  most  cruel  and  most  inhuman 
torture  of  sorcerers.  When  the  alchemist  and 
the  astrologer  ran  the  risk  of  suffering  as  a 
sorcerer  or  a  warlock,  he  paused  before  pub- 
licly embarking  on  that  trade. 

Under  the  Tudors,  the  laws  against  witch- 
craft were  milder  than  those  of  other  coun- 
tries, but,  under  James  I,  these  laws  were 
repealed  and  he  himself  took — as  he  had  done 
before  in  Scotland — an  active  part  in  this  cruel 
and  senseless  persecution.  During  the  first 
eighty  years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  no  less 
than  70,000  men  and  women  are  said  to  have 
been  executed  for  alleged  offences  under  the 
new  act.  The  king  even  wrote  a  book  on 
demonology,  attacking  the  more  sensible  and 
reasonable  views  of  Scot  and  Wier.  It  must 
be  remembered,  however,  that,  in  these  times, 
the  generality  of  learned  and  able  men  be- 
lieved in  the  maleficent  effects  of  sorcery  and 


116  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

the  black  art.  The  bench  of  bishops  and  the 
bench  of  judges  alike  took  part  in  what  seems 
to  us  a  hideous  and  wanton  brutality.  Even 
so  great  a  writer  as  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  who 
tells  us,  "for  the  sorrows  of  others  he  has  quick 
sympathy,"  gave  evidence  against  two  un- 
happy women  charged  before  Sir  Matthew 
Hale  at  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  and  his  evidence 
helped  to  secure  their  iniquitous  conviction. 

Browne,  like  many  of  his  day,  was  a  firm 
believer  in  horoscopes — "I  was  born  in  the 
planetary  hour  of  Saturn  and  I  think  I  have 
a  piece  of  that  leaden  planet  in  me."  He  was, 
however,  perhaps  a  little  in  advance  of  some  of 
his  contemporaries;  at  any  rate,  he  recognised 
that  foretellings  based  on  star-gazing  do  not 
always  "make  good."  "We  deny  not  the  influ- 
ence of  the  stars  but  often  suspect  the  due 
application  thereof."  During  the  civil  war, 
both  sides  used  astrologers  and  acted  on  their 
prognostications;  but,  on  the  whole,  the  firm 
belief  that  future  events  could  be  foretold  by 
a  study  of  the  planetary  system  was  waning. 
"They"  (i.e.  the  stars)  "incline  but  do  not  com- 
pel .  .  .  and  so  gently  incline  that  a  wise  man 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  117 

may  resist  them;  sapiens  dominahitur  astris: 
they  rule  but  God  rules  them."*  This  was  said 
by  Robert  Burton,  and  it  probably  represents 
the  average  opinion  of  the  more  educated  in 
our  period. 

The  part  played  by  alchemy  in  the  life  of 
the  times  can  be  judged  by  Ben  Jonson's 
Alchemist,  first  acted  in  1610,  which  affords 
a  true  insight  into  the  fashionable  craze  of  the 
time.  The  play  was  constantly  presented 
from  that  date  until  the  closing  of  the  theatres 
and,  on  the  restoration,  was  one  of  the  first 
plays  to  be  revived.  Jonson  certainly  had 
mastered  the  jargon  of  this  form  of  quackery, 
and  showed  a  profound  knowledge  of  the  art 
of  its  professors.  In  Epicoene,  or  the  Silent 
Woman,  he  refers  to  the  love  pliiltres  of  one 
Forman,  a  most  flagrant  rascal  who  was  mixed 
up  with  the  Overbury  trial. 

It  has  been  said  that  a  competent  man  of 
science  should  be  able  to  put  into  language 
''understanded  of  the  people"  any  problem,  no 
matter  how  complex,  at  which  he  is  working. 
This  seems  hardly  possible  in  the  twentieth 

*  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  part  Ij  sec.  II,  Mem.  1,  sec.  IV. 


118  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

century.  To  explain  to  a  trained  histologist 
double  9  functions  or  to  a  skilled  mathemati- 
cian the  intricacies  of  karyokinesis  would 
take  a  very  long  time.  The  introduction  in  all 
the  sciences  of  technical  words  is  due  not  to  any 
spirit  of  perverseness  on  the  part  of  modern 
savants;  these  terms,  long  as  they  usually  are, 
'  serve  as  the  shorthand  of  science.  In  the 
Stewart  times,  however,  an  investigator  could 
explain  in  simple  language  to  his  friends  what 
he  was  doing,  and  the  advance  of  natural 
science  was  keenly  followed  by  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men. 

Whatever  were  the  political  and  moral  de- 
ficiencies of  the  Stewart  kings,  no  one  of  them 
lacked  intelligence  in  things  artistic  and 
scientific.  The  pictures  at  Windsor  and  at 
Buckingham  Palace  which  the  nation  owes  to 
Charles  I  and  Charles  II  are  only  approached 
by  those  it  owes  to  the  knowledge  and  taste  of 
Queen  Victoria's  consort.  At  Whitehall, 
Charles  II  had  his  "little  elaboratory,  under 
his  closet,  a  pretty  place,"^  and  was  working 
there  but  a  day  or  two  before  his  death,  his 

=  Pepys,  16  Jan.  1669. 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  119 

illness  disinclining  him  for  his  wonted  exercise. 
The  king  took  a  curious  interest  in  anatomy; 
on  11  May  1663,  Pierce,  the  surgeon,  tells 
Pepys  "that  the  other  day  Dr.  Gierke  and  he 
did  dissect  two  bodies,  a  man  and  a  woman 
before  the  King  with  which  the  King  was 
highly  pleased."  Pepys  also  records,  17  Feb- 
ruary 1662-3,  on  the  authority  of  Edward 
Pickering,  another  story  of  a  dissection  in  the 
royal  closet  by  the  king's  own  hands. 

It  has,  I  think,  seldom  been  pointed  out 
that  Charles  II's  ancestry  accounts  for  many 
of  his  qualities  and  especially  for  his  interest 
in  science.  He  was  very  unlike  his  father, 
but  his  mother  was  the  daughter  of  a  Medici 
princess,  and  the  characteristics  of  that  fam- 
ily are  strongly  marked  in  the  "merry  mon- 
arch." His  gaiety  and  wit  and  his  skill  in 
money  matters  when  he  chose  to  apply  himself, 
all  bring  to  mind  the  Italian  family  from 
which  he  sprang.  Even  the  swarthy  com- 
plexion of  Charles  II  was  probably  due  to  his 
Italian  blood,  and  his  fondness  for  outdoor 
sports  is  another  trait  which  is  often  observed 
in  the  Medici  themselves.    There  is  an  old  en- 


120  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

graving  of  a  portrait  of  Lorenzo  (d.  1648), 
the  brother  of  Cosimo  II,  which  shows  an  as- 
tonishing resemblance  to  Charles  II ;  and  it  is 
interesting  to  remember  that  Cosimo  II  earned 
his  chief  claim  to  the  gratitude  of  posterity 
by  his  courageous  encouragement,  protection 
and  support  of  Galileo,  who  owed  to  him  the 
opportunity  and  means  of  making  his  famous 
astronomical  discoveries. 

Another  royal  personage,  Prince  Rupert, 
"full  of  spirit  and  action,  full  of  observation 
and  judgment,"  about  this  time  invented  his 
"chemical  glasses  which  break  all  to  dust  by 
breaking  off  a  little  small  end:  which  is  a 
great  mystery  to  me."^'  He  had,  says  Gra- 
mont,  quelques  talens  for  chemistry  and  in- 
vented a  new  method  for  making  gunpowder, 
for  making  "hails  hot"  and  for  boring  cannon. 
His  traditional  invention  of  the  almost  lost 
art  of  mezzotint  is  probably  due  to  the  fact 
that,  at  an  early  date,  the  real  inventor,  Lud- 
wig  von  Siegen,  explained  to  him  his  process 
and  that  Prince  Rupert  demonstrated  with 
his  own  hands  this  new  method  of  engraving 
to  Evelyn. 

•Pepys,  13  Jan.  1662. 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  121 

Another  aristocratic  inventor,  Edward 
Somerset,  second  marquis  of  Worcester,  has 
received  more  credit  than  he  deserved.  He 
was  interested  in  mechanics  and  employed  a 
skilled  mechanician,  one  Kaltoff,  in  his  labora- 
tory, but  his  claims  to  have  invented  a  steam- 
engine  do  not  bear  critical  investigation,  and 
his  well-known  Century  of  Inventions  does 
not  rise  to  the  level  of  The  Boy's  Own  Booh 
of  the  last  century.  Many  of  his  suggestions, 
though  ingenious,  are  based  on  fallacies,  and 
comparatively  few  of  them  were  practical. 

A  curiously  versatile  amateur  in  science  was 
Sir  Kenelm  Digby.  Like  most  prominent 
men  of  his  time,  he  intervened  in  theological 
questions,  besides  playing  an  active  part  in 
public  affairs.  He  was  an  original  member  of 
the  Royal  Society,  but  although  he  is  reported 
to  have  been  the  first  to  record  the  importance 
of  the  "vital  air" — we  now  call  it  oxygen — to 
plants,  and  although  he  had  gifts  of  observa- 
tion, his  work  lay  largely  in  the  paths  of 
alchemy  and  astrology,  and  he  seems  to  have 
had  recourse  to  a  lively  imagination  in  esti- 
mating the  results  of  his  experiments.     He 


122  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

trafficked  in  the  transmutation  of  metals,  and 
his  name  was  long  associated  with  a  certain 
"powder  of  sympathy"  which,  like  the  "absent 
treatment"  of  the  twentieth  century  practi- 
tioners of  Christian  Science,  "acted  at  a  dis- 
tance." Evelyn  looked  on  him  as  a  quack,  "a 
teller  of  strange  things,"  and  Lady  Fanshawe 
refers  to  his  infirmity  of  lying ;  he  was  certainly 
a  great  talker.  Still,  other  men  of  his  epoch 
spoke  well  of  him  and  his  conversation  was 
doubtless  stimulating  if  profuse. 

In  mathematics,  John  Wallis  was,  to  some 
extent,  a  forerunner  of  Newton.  At  Felsted 
School  and  at  Emmanuel  College,  he  received 
the  curiously  wide  education  of  his  age.  He 
was  a  skilled  linguist;  although  he  had  taken 
holy  orders,  he  was  the  first  of  Francis  Glis- 
son's  pupils  to  proclaim  in  public  Harvey's 
discovery  on  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  but 
his  bent  was  towards  mathematics,  and  he  pos- 
sessed an  extraordinary  memory  for  figures. 
His  Arithmetica  Infinitorum  is  described  as 
"the  most  stimulating  mathematical  work  so 
far  published  in  England."  It  contained  the 
germs  of  the  differential  calculus,  and  it  sug- 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  123 

gested  to  Newton,  who  "read  it  with  dehght," 
the  binomial  theorem.  In  it  tt  was  evaluated, 
and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  to  Wallis 
we  owe  the  symbol  for  infinity,  oo.  Living  in 
troublesome  times,  under  many  rulers,  he  con- 
trived, not  without  some  loss  of  popularity,  to 
remain  on  good  terms  with  all.  His  services 
were,  indeed,  indispensable  to  a  succession  of 
governments,  for  he  had  a  power  of  decipher- 
ing which  was  almost  miraculous.  Cromwell, 
who  seems  to  have  had  a  great  respect  for  his 
powers,  appointed  him  Savilian  Professor  of 
geometry  at  Oxford  in  1649. 

Another  mathematical  ecclesiastic  was  Seth 
Ward,  bishop  of  Exeter  and  afterwards  of 
Salisbury.  Ward  was  educated  at  Sidney 
Sussex  College  and,  in  1643,  was  chosen  as 
mathematical  lecturer  to  the  University  at 
Cambridge.  But,  like  Wallis,  he  was  ap- 
pointed, and  in  the  same  year,  to  a  Savilian 
professorship,  that  of  astronomy — another 
instance,  not  uncommon  at  the  time,  of  men 
educated  at  Cambridge  but  recognised  and 
promoted  at  Oxford.  He  took  the  place  of  the 
ejected  John   Greaves,   who  magnanimously 


124  ARTHUR  j^:.  SHIPLEY 

used  his  influence  in  his  successor's  favor. 
Ward  was  renowned  as  a  preacher;  but  his 
later  fame  rested  chiefly  on  his  contributions  to 
the  science  of  astronomy,  and  he  is  remem- 
bered in  the  world  of  science  mainly  for  his 
theory  of  planetary  motion.  Ward  and 
Wallis — but  the  burden  of  the  attack  was 
borne  by  the  latter — laid  bare  Hobbes's  at- 
tempted proof  of  the  squaring  of  the  circle; 
there  was  also  a  little  controversy  "on  the 
duplication  of  the  cube,"  and  mixed  up  with 
these  criticisms  in  the  realm  of  pure  reason 
were  political  motives.  Hobbes  had  not  be- 
gun to  study  Euclid  until  he  was  forty;  and, 
after  Sir  Henry  Savile  had  founded  his  pro- 
fessorships at  Oxford,  Wood  says  that  not  a 
few  of  the  foolish  gentry  "kept  back  their 
sons"  in  order  not  "to  have  them  smutted  by 
the  black  art" — so  great  was  the  fear  and  the 
ignorance  of  the  powers  of  mathematics. 
Ward  was  a  pluralist,  as  was  the  manner  of 
the  times,  and  Burnet  tells  us  "he  was  a  pro- 
found statesman  but  a  very  indifferent  clergy- 
man." Yet,  what  money  he  got  he  lavishly 
spent  on  ecclesiastical  and  other  purposes.    As 


THE  RF.VIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  125 

Bishop  of  Exeter,  he  restored,  at  the  cost  of 
£25,000,  the  cathedral;  repaired  the  palace; 
considerably  increased  the  value  of  the  poorer 
benefices  of  his  diocese  and  of  the  prebends  of 
his  cathedral;  and  gave  a  considerable  sum  of 
money  towards  the  cost  of  making  the  river 
navigable  from  his  cathedral  city  to  the  sea. 
He  founded  the  Seth  Ward  almshouses  at 
Salisbury,  and  he  gave  certain  farms  and  fee- 
farm  rents  for  scholarships  at  Christ's  College, 
Cambridge. 

Like  the  distinguished  mathematicians  just 
mentioned,  Isaac  Newton  took  a  keen  interest 
in  certain  forms  of  theology  current  in  his  day ; 
but  in  his  intellectual  powers  he  surpassed  not 
only  them  but  all  living  mathematicians  and 
those  who  lived  after  him.  His  supreme 
genius  has  ensured  him  a  place  in  the  very 
small  list  of  the  world's  thinkers  of  the  first 
order.  He,  too,  exercised  a  certain  influence 
in  affairs,  and,  during  his  later  years,  he  took 
a  keen  interest  in  theological  speculations ;  but 
his  activities  in  these  fields  are  completely 
overshadowed  by  the  far-reaching  importance 
of  his  great  discoveries  as  a  natural  philoso- 


126  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

pher  and  a  mathematician.  As  the  discoverer 
of  the  decomposition  of  white  hght  in  the  spec- 
trum, he  may  be  regarded  as  the  founder  of 
the  modern  science  of  optics.  His  discovery 
of  the  law  of  gravitation,  and  his  appHcation 
of  it  to  the  explanation  of  Kepler's  laws  of 
planetary  motion  and  of  the  principal  inequal- 
ities in  the  orbital  motion  of  the  moon,  made 
him  the  founder  of  the  science  of  gravitational 
astronomy.  His  discovery  of  the  method  of 
fluxions  entitles  him  to  rank  with  Leibnitz  as 
one  of  the  founders  of  mathematical  analysis. 
All  these  great  discoveries  gave  rise  to  long 
and  sometimes  acrimonious  controversies 
among  his  contemporaries,  relating  both 
to  the  subjects  themselves  and  to  priority  of 
discovery.  In  a  letter  to  Halley  refer- 
ring to  one  of  these  disputes,  Newton 
writes : 

Philosophy  is  such  an  impertinently  litigious  lady, 

\  that  a  man  has  as  good  be  engaged  in  lawsuits,  as 

have  to  do  with  her.    I  found  it  so  formerly,  and  now 

I  am  no  sooner  come  near  her  again,  but  she  gives  me 

warning. 

His  chief  work,  Principia,  has  been  described 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  127 

by  Dean  Peacock  as  "the  greatest  single  tri- 
umph of  the  human  mind."^ 

The  second  man  of  outstanding  genius  in 
British  science  in  the  seventeenth  century  was 
Harvey,  who,  hke  Newton,  worked  in  one  of 
the  two  sciences  which,  in  Stewart  times,  were, 
to  some  extent,  ahead  of  all  the  others.  Har- 
vey, "the  little  choleric  man"  as  Aubrey  calls 
him,  was  educated  at  Cambridge  and  at  Padua 
and  was  in  his  thirty-eighth  year  when,  in  his 
lectures  on  anatomy,  he  expounded  his  new 
doctrine  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  to  the 
College  of  Physicians,  although  his  Eocercitatio 
on  this  subject  did  not  appear  till  1628.  His 
notes  for  the  lectures  are  now  in  the  British 
Museum.  He  was  physician  to  Charles  I; 
and  it  is  on  record  how,  during  the  battle  of 
Edgehill,  he  looked  after  the  young  princes  as 
he  sat  reading  a  book  under  a  hedge  a  little 
removed  from  the  fight. 

In  the  chain  of  evidence  of  his  convincing 
demonstration  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood, 

^  Newton  held  the  office  of  president  of  the  Royal  Society 
for  the  last  twenty-five  years  of  his  life,  a  period  exceeded  only 
in  the  case  of  one  president,  Sir  Joseph  Banks. 


128  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

one  link,  only  to  be  supplied  by  the  invention 
of  the  compound  microscope,  was  missing. 
This,  the  discovery  of  the  capillaries,  was  due 
to  Malpighi,  who  was  amongst  the  earliest 
anatomists  to  apply  the  compound  microscope 
to  animal  tissues.    Still,  as  Dryden  has  it. 

The  circling  streams   once  thought  but  pools  of 

blood — 
(Whether  life's  fuel  or  the  body's  food), 
From  dark  oblivion  Harvey's  name  shall  save.^ 

Harvey  was  happy  in  two  respects  as  re- 
gards his  discovery.  It  was,  in  the  main  and 
especially  in  England,  recognised  as  proven 
in  his  own  lifetime,  and,  again,  no  one  of 
credit  claimed  or  asserted  the  claim  of  others  to 
priority.  In  research,  all  enquirers  stand  on 
steps  others  have  built  up;  but,  in  this,  the 
most  important  of  single  contributions  to 
physiology,  the  credit  is  Harvey's  and  almost 
Harvey's  alone.  His  other  great  work,  Exer- 
citationes  de  Generatione  Animalium,  is  of 
secondary  importance.  It  shows  marvellous 
powers  of  observation  and  very  laborious  re- 
search; but,  although,  to  a  great  extent,  it  led 

"Epistle  to  Dr.  Charleton. 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  129 

the  way  in  embryology,  it  was  shortly  super- 
seded by  works  of  those  who  had  the  com- 
pound microscope  at  their  command.  Cowley, 
a  man  of  wide  culture,  wrote  an  Ode  on 
Harvey  in  which  his  achievement  was  con- 
trasted with  a  failing  common  to  scientific 
men  of  his  own  time,  and,  so  far  as  we  can 
see,  of  all  time: 

Harvey  sought  for  Truth  in  Truth's  own  Book 
The  Creatures,  which  by  God  Himself  was  writ ; 

And  wisely  thought  'twas  fit, 
Not  to  read  Comments  only  upon  it. 
But  on  th'  original  it  self  to  look. 
Methinks  in  Arts  great  Circle,  others  stand 

Lock't  up  together.  Hand  in  Hand, 

Every  one  leads  as  he  is  led. 

The  same  bare  path  they  tread, 
A  Dance  like  Fairies  a  Fantastick  round. 
But  neither  change  their  motion,  nor  their  ground: 
Had  Harvey  to  this  Road  confin'd  his  wit. 
His  noble  Circle  of  the  Blood,  had  been  untrodden 
yet. 

Harvey's  death  is  recorded  in  a  characteris- 
tic seventeenth  century  sentence,  taken  from 
the  unpublished  pages  of  Baldwin  Harvey's 
Bustorum  Aliquot  Reliquiae: 


130  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

Of  William  Harvey,  the  most  fortunate  anatomist, 
the  blood  ceased  to  move  on  the  third  day  of  the 
Ides  of  June,  in  the  year  1657,  the  continuous  move- 
ment of  which  in  all  men,  moreover  he  had  most  truly 
asserted.   .   . 

'^Ev  T€  Tpo)(<a  TravTcs  /cat  cvt  ttolctl  rpo^oi^ 

Among  other  great  physiologists  and  phy- 
sicians, Sir  Theodore  Turquet  de  May  erne 
(godson  of  Theodore  Beza),  who  settled  in 
London  in  1611,  has  left  us  Notes  of  the  dis- 
eases of  the  great  which,  to  the  medically 
minded,  are  of  the  greatest  interest.  He 
almost  diagnosed  enteric,  and  his  observations 
on  the  fatal  illness  of  Henry,  Prince  of  Wales, 
and  the  memoir  he  drew  up  in  1623  on  the 
health  of  James  I,  alike  leave  little  to  be  de- 
sired in  completeness  or  in  accuracy  of  detail. 

Before  bringing  to  a  close  these  short  notices 
of  those  who  studied  and  wrote  on  the  human 
body,  whole  or  diseased,  a  few  lines  must  be 
given  to  John  Mayow  of  Oxford,  who  fol- 
lowed the  law,  "especially  in  the  summer  time 
at  Bath."  Yet,  from  his  contributions  to 
science,  one  might  well  suppose  that  he  had 

®  The  writer  is  indebted  for  this  quotation  to  Dr.  Norman 
Moore's  History  of  the  Study  of  Medicine  in  the  British  Isles, 
Oxford,  1908. 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  131 

devoted  his  whole  time  to  research  in  chemistry 
and  physiology.  He  it  was  who  showed  that, 
in  respiration,  not  the  whole  air  but  a  part 
only  of  the  air  breathed  in  takes  an  active  part 
in  respiration,  though  he  called  this  part  "by 
a  different  name,  he  meant  what  we  now  call 
oxygen.  "^^ 

Thomas  Sydenham  was  one  of  the  first  phy- 
sicians who  was  convinced  of  the  importance 
of  constant  and  prolonged  observation  at  the 
bedside  of  the  patient.  He  passed  by  all 
authority  but  one — "the  divine  old  man  Hip- 
pocrates," whose  medicine  rested  also  on  obser- 
vation. He,  first  in  England,  "attempted  to 
arrive  at  general  laws  about  the  prevalence 
and  the  course  and  the  treatment  of  disease 
from  clinical  observation."  He  was  essentially 
a  physician  occupied  in  diagnosis,  treatment 
and  prognosis.  When  he  was  but  twenty-five 
years  old,  he  began  to  suffer  from  gout,  and 
his  personal  experience  enabled  him  to  write 
a  classic  on  this  disease,  which  is  even  now 
unsurpassed. 

^'  Foster,    Sir    Michael,    The    History    of    Physiology,   Cam- 
bridge, 1901. 


132  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

Francis  Glisson,  like  Sydenham,  was  essen- 
tially English  in  his  upbringing,  and  did  not 
owe  anything  to  foreign  education.  His  work 
on  the  liver  has  made  "Glisson's  capsule" 
known  to  every  medical  student,  and  he  wrote 
an  authoritative  book  on  rickets.  He,  like 
Harvey,  was  educated  at  Gonville  and  Caius 
College,  and,  in  1636,  became  Regius  Professor 
of  physic  at  Cambridge,  but  the  greater  part 
of  his  life  he  spent  at  Colchester.  We  must 
perforce  pass  by  the  fashionable  Thomas 
Willis  and  his  more  capable  assistant  Richard 
Lower,  with  Sir  George  Ent,  and  others. 

The  invention  of  the  microscope  mentioned 
above  gave  a  great  impetus  to  the  study  of 
the  anatomical  structure  of  plants  and  later  of 
animals;  and  in  relation  to  this  we  must  not 
overlook  the  work  of  Nehemiah  Grew  (1641- 
1712)  who,  with  the  Italian  Malpighi,  may  be 
considered  a  co-founder  of  the  science  of  plant- 
anatomy.  He  was  the  son  of  a  clergyman, 
who,  as  clergymen  were  apt  to  do  in  those 
days,  got  into  trouble  under  the  Act  of 
Uniformity. 

Nehemiah  studied  at  Pembroke  Hall,  Cam- 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  133 

bridge,  and  afterwards  took  his  Doctor's  De- 
gree at  Leiden.  He  published  numerous 
treatises  deahng  with  the  anatomy  of  vege- 
tables, and  with  the  comparative  anatomy  of 
trunks,  roots,  etc.,  illustrated  with  admirable 
and  somewhat  diagrammatic  plates.  Although 
essentially  an  anatomist  he  made  certain 
investigations  into  plant  physiology  and  sug- 
gested many  more.  Perhaps  his  most  inter- 
esting contribution  to  the  science,  however, 
was  his  discovery  that  flowering  plants,  like 
animals,  have  male  and  female  sexes.  It 
seems  odd  to  reflect  that  this  discovery  is  only 
about  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  old.  When 
Grew  began  to  work  the  study  of  botany  was 
in  a  very  neglected  condition — ^the  old  herbal 
had  ceased  to  interest,  and  with  its  contempo- 
rary the  bestiary,  was  disappearing  from  cur- 
rent use,  and  the  work  of  some  of  Grew's 
contemporaries  notably  Robert  Morison  and 
John  Ray,  hastened  their  disappearance.  Of 
these  two  systematists  Ray  was,  on  the  whole, 
more  successful:  Morison's  efforts  at  classify- 
ing the  vegetable  kingdom  received  much 
criticism  at  the  time  and  by  no  means  came  up 


134  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

to  the  great  expectations  that  he  himself  had 
formed  of  them.  Ray's  system  at  any  rate 
obtained  in  England  until  the  latter  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  when  it  was  gradu- 
ally replaced  by  the  Linnaean  method  of 
classification. 

But  Ray  has  other  claims  on  our  regard. 
He  and  Francis  Willughby,  both  of  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge,  attacked  a  similar  prob- 
lem in  the  animal  kingdom.  Willughby  was 
the  only  son  of  wealthy  and  titled  parents, 
whilst  Ray  was  the  son  of  a  village  blacksmith. 
But  the  older  Universities  are  great  levellers, 
and  Ray  succeeded  in  infusing  his  fellow  stu- 
dent at  Cambridge  with  his  own  genuine  love 
for  natural  history.  With  Willughby  he 
started  out  on  his  methodical  investigations  of 
animals  and  plants  in  all  the  accessible  parts  of 
the  world.  Willughby  died  young  and  be- 
queathed a  small  benefaction  and  his  manu- 
scripts to  his  older  friend.  After  his  death 
Ray  undertook  to  revise  and  complete  his 
*' Ornithology"  and  therein  paid  great  attention 
to  the  internal  anatomy  and  to  the  habits  and 
to  the  eggs  of  most  of  the  birds  he  described. 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  135 

All  the  innumerable  fables  which  had  passed 
from  book  to  book  in  the  old  bestiaries  disap- 
peared, for  Ray  ever  showed  a  healthy  scepti- 
cism with  regard  to  the  marvellous.  He, 
further,  edited  Willughby's  "History  of 
Fishes,"  but  perpetuated  the  mistake  of  his 
predecessors  in  retaining  whales  amongst  that 
group.  In  a  rather  rationalistic  mood  he 
argues  that  the  fish  which  swallowed  Jonah 
must  have  been  a  shark.  Perhaps  the  weakest 
of  the  three  great  histories — the  History  of 
Insects — was  due  to  the  fact  that  Ray  edited  it 
in  his  old  age. 

Ray  was  always  a  fine  field  naturalist,  and 
his  catalogues  of  Cambridgeshire  plants  long 
remained  a  classic.  We  may  perhaps  sum  up 
the  contributions  of  this  great  naturalist  in 
the  words  of  Professor  Miall.  "During  his 
long  and  strenuous  life  he  introduced  many 
lasting  improvements — fuller  descriptions, 
better  definitions,  better  associations,  better 
sequences.  He  strove  to  rest  his  distinctions 
upon  knowledge  of  structure,  which  he  person- 
ally investigated  at  every  opportunity  .  .  . 
His  greatest  single  improvement  was  the  divi- 


136  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

sion  of  the  herbs  into  Monocotyledons  and 
Dicotyledons  .  .  .  He  made  things  much 
easier  for  Linnaeus,  as  did  Linnaeus  in  his 
turn  for  naturalists  who  now  smile  at  his  mis- 
takes. Both  were  capable  of  proposing  hap- 
hazard classifications,  a  fact  which  need  not 
surprise  us,  when  we  reflect  how  much  reason 
we  have  to  suspect  that  the  best  arrangements 
of  birds,  teleostean  fishes,  insects  and  flower- 
ing plants  known  to  our  own  generation  need 
to  be  largely  recast." 

Great  as  were  the  seventeenth  century  phi- 
losophers in  the  biological  and  medical  sciences, 
they  were  paralleled  if  not  surpassed  by 
workers  on  the  physical  and  mathematical 
side.  Robert  Boyle — who  has  been  described 
as  the  Father  of  Chemistry  and  Brother  of  the 
Earl  of  Cork — was,  even  as  a  boy  of  eighteen, 
one  of  the  leaders  in  the  comparatively  new 
pursuit  of  experimental  science.  His  first  love 
was  chemistry,  "Vulcan  has  so  transported  and 
bewitched  me  as  to  make  me  fancy  my  labor- 
atory a  kind  of  Elysium,"  thus  he  wrote  in 
1649.  A  few  years  later  (1652-3),  in  Ireland, 
where  he  was  called  to  look  after  the  family 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  13T 

estates,  he  found  it  *'hard  to  have  any  Hermetic 
thoughts,"  and  occupied  his  mind  with  anatomy 
and  confirming  Harvey's  discovery  of  the  cir- 
culation of  the  blood.  A  year  later,  he  settled 
at  Oxford,  where  he  arranged  a  laboratory  and 
had  as  assistant  Robert  Hooke.  Meetings 
were  held  alternately  at  Boyle's  lodgings  and 
at  John  Wilkins's  lodge  at  Wadham,  and  were 
frequented  by  Seth  Ward  and  Christopher 
Wren  and  by  many  others. 

Stimulated  by  Otto  von  Guericke's  contriv- 
ance for  exhausting  air  from  a  vessel,  Boyle, 
aided  by  Hooke,  invented  what  was  called  the 
"machina  Boyliana,"  which  comprised  the  es- 
sentials of  the  air-pump  of  today.  At  this 
time,  Boyle  busied  himself  with  the  weight, 
with  the  pressure  and  with  the  elasticity  of 
air — the  part  it  played  in  respiration  and  in 
acoustics.  Like  Newton,  he  took  a  deep  in- 
terest in  theology,  and  not  only  spent  consid- 
erable sums  in  translating  the  Bible  into  for- 
eign tongues,  but  learnt  Greek,  Hebrew, 
Syriac  and  Chaldee  so  that  he  might  read  it  at 
first  hand.  He  was,  indeed,  a  very  notable 
character.      Suffering    under    continued    ill- 


138  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

health,  with  weak  eyes,  a  shght  stammer,  and 
a  memory  treacherous  to  the  last  degree,  he 
was  yet  one  of  the  most  helpful  of  friends  and 
universally  popular  alike  at  the  court  of  three 
kings,  and  in  the  society  of  men  of  letters,  men 
of  business  and  men  of  science.  In  spite  of 
the  fact  that  he  was  the  first  to  distinguish  a 
mixture  from  a  compound,  to  define  an  ele- 
ment, to  prepare  hydrogen  though  he  did  not 
recognise  its  nature,  he  had  in  him  the  touch 
of  an  amateur,  but  an  amateur  of  genius.  His 
style  in  writing  was  unusually  prolix  and  he 
seldom  followed  out  his  discoveries  to  their 
ultimate  end. 

It  was  men  such  as  these  that  re-established 
the  Royal  Society  in  1660.  Exactly  a  century 
earlier,  the  first  scientific  society,  the  Aca- 
demia  Secretorum  Naturae  of  Naples  had  its 
origin.  This  was  followed  by  several  others  in 
Italy  and  in  France,  most  of  them  but  short- 
lived. Among  English  or  Teutonic  folk,  the 
Royal  Society  was  the  earliest  to  appear,  and, 
even  if  we  include  the  scientific  societies  of  the 
world,  it  has  had  the  most  continuous  exist- 
ence.   Indeed,  before  its  birth,  it  underwent  a 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  139 

long  period  of  incubation,  and  its  inception 
was  in  reality  in  1645.  At  that  date,  a  society 
known  as  the  Philosophical,  or,  as  Boyle 
called  it,  the  "Invisible,"  College  came  into  be- 
ing, which  met  from  time  to  time  at  Gresham 
College  and  elsewhere  in  London.  During 
the  civil  war,  this  society  was  split  in  two, 
some  members  meeting  in  London,  some  at 
Oxford,  but  the  meetings,  wherever  held,  were 
at  irregular  intervals.  On  the  restoration,  the 
meetings  were  resumed  in  London  and,  in 
1662,  the  society  received  the  royal  charter. 

Of  all  the  poets  of  the  time,  Cowley  took, 
perhaps,  the  greatest  interest  in  science.  He 
had,  indeed,  like  Evelyn  and  at  about  the 
same  date,  developed  a  plan  for  the  institution 
of  a  college  of  science.  Evelyn  explains  his 
scheme  in  a  letter  addressed  to  Robert  Boyle, 
dated  3  September  1659  from  Sayes  court, 
which  contains  minute  details  as  to  the  build- 
ings, the  maintenance,  and  the  government  of 
his  college,  the  inmates  of  which  were  to  "pre- 
serve science  and  cultivate  themselves."  Cow- 
ley's scheme  was  also  elaborately  thought  out, 
and  had  the  original  and  admirable  suggestion 


140  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

that,  out  of  the  twenty  salaried  professors,  six- 
teen should  be  always  resident  and  four  always 
travelling  in  the  four  quarters  of  the  world,  in 
order  that  they  might  "give  a  constant  account 
of  all  things  that  belong  to  the  learning  and 
especially  Natural  Experimental  Philosophy, 
of  those  parts."  To  his  "Philosophical  Col- 
ledge"  was  to  be  attached  a  school  of  two  hun- 
dred boys.  Both  these  schemes,  according  to 
Bishop  Sprat,  hastened  the  foundation  of  the 
Royal  Society,  of  which  both  projectors  were 
original  members. 

Cowley's  poems  were  greatly  admired  dur- 
ing his  lifetime,  later  critics  have  considered 
him  affected,  perhaps  because,  like  Donne,  he 
understood,  and  was  not  afraid  to  use,  the 
technical  language  of  the  schools.  We  have 
quoted  some  of  his  lines  on  Harvey,  and  may 
add  a  few  from  the  ode  with  which  he  greeted 
the  birth  of  the  Royal  Society: 

From all  long  Errors  of  the  way, 

In  which  our  Praedecessors  went, 

And  like  th'  old  Hebrews  many  years  did  stray 

In  Desarts  but  of  small  extent. 
Bacon,  like  Moses,  led  us  forth  at  last 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  SCIENCE  141 

The  barren  Wilderness  he  past, 

Did  on  the  very  Border  stand 

Of  the  blest  promis'd  Land, 
And  from  the  Mountains  Top  of  his  Exalted  Wit, 

Saw  it  himself,  and  shewed  us  it. 
But  Life  did  never  to  one  Man  allow 
Time  to  Discover  Worlds,  and  Conquer  too ; 
Nor  can  so  short  a  Line  sufficient  be 
To  f adome  the  vast  depths  of  Natures  Sea : 

The  work  he  did  we  ought  t'  admire 
And  were  unjust  if  we  should  more  require 
From  his  few  years,  divided  'twixt  th'  Excess 
Of  low  Affliction,  and  high  Happiness. 
For  who  on  things  remote  can  fix  his  sight, 
That's  alwayes  in  a  Triumph,  or  a  Fight? 

Donne,  who,  like  Cowley,  indulged  in 
quaint  poetical  conceits  and  who  founded  a 
new  school  of  poetry,  abjuring  classical  con- 
ventions and  classical  characters,  and  treating 
of  topics  and  objects  of  everyday  life,  was  not 
afraid  of  realism.  "Upon  common  objects," 
Dr.  Johnson  tells  us,  he  was  "unnecessarily 
and  unpoetically  subtle."  Time  limits  us  to 
one  quotation: 

Marke  but  this  flea,  and  marke  in  this. 
How  little  that  which  thou  deny'st  me  is ; 
It  suck'd  me  first,  and  now  sucks  thee. 
And  in  this  flea,  our  two  bloods  mingled  bee. 


143  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

Donne  did  not  of  course  foresee  the  appalling 
part  that  these  insects,  by  the  habits  he  men- 
tions, play  in  the  spread  of  such  diseases  as 
bubonic  plague  and  many  epizootics  in 
animals. 

The  dramatists  of  the  Stewart  period  hardly 
afford  us  the  help  we  need  in  estimating  the 
position  occupied  by  science  and  by  men  of 
science  in  the  world  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
The  astrologer  and  the  alchemist  were  then 
stock  characters  of  the  drama  of  everyday  life, 
just  as  the  company  promoter  and  the  multi- 
millionaire are  now.  "The  Gentlemen  of 
Trinity  Colledge"  presented  "before  the  King's 
Majesty"  a  comedy  entitled  Alhumazar, 
which  takes  its  name  from  the  chief  character, 
an  astrologer,  a  very  arrant  knave,  and  the 
type  of  the  false  man  of  science.  This  play, 
originally  printed  in  1615,  was  soon  forgotten, 
but  it  was  revived  in  1668  and  met  with  great 
success. 

Samuel  Butler,  who  was  not  a  Fellow  of  the 
Royal  Society,  for  some  reason  difficult  to 
explain,  spent  much  time  in  attacking  it.  He 
wrote  his  entertaining  satire  on  the  virtuosi 


THE   REVIVAL  OF   SCIENCE  143 

entitled  The  Elephant  in  the  Moon  in  short 
verse,  and  was  so  pleased  with  it  that  he  wrote 
it  over  again  in  long  verse.  Though  this 
"Satire  upon  the  Royal  Society"  remains  a 
fragment,  enough  of  it  is  extant  to  show  But- 
ler did  not  appreciate  what  even  in  these  days 
is  not  always  appreciated,  that  the  minute  in- 
vestigation of  subjects  and  objects  which  to 
the  ordinary  man  seem  trivial  and  vain  often 
lead  to  discoveries  of  the  profoundest  import 
to  mankind. 

Ben  Jonson,  with  his  flair  for  presenting 
what  zoologists  call  "type  species,"  showed,  as 
has  been  seen,  in  his  Alchemist  an  unusual  but 
a  thorough,  mastery  of  the  half  scientific  and 
half  quack  jargon  of  the  craft,  so  that  this  play 
is  a  quarry  for  all  interested  in  the  history  of 
chemical  and  physical  studies.  To  the  play- 
writer  of  the  time,  the  man  of  science  or  of 
pseudo-science  was  a  vague,  peevish  pedant, 
much  occupied  with  physiognomies,  dreams, 
and  fantastic  ideas  as  to  the  properties  and 
powers  of  various  substances.  But  there  seems 
to  have  been  a  clear  distinction  drawn  between 


144  ARTHUR  E.  SHIPLEY 

a  real  and  a  false  astrology,  as  is  shown  in 
Dryden's  An  Evening's  Love  (1668). 

The  above  is  but  an  all  too  brief  record  of 
the  founding  of  modern  science  by  our  ances- 
tors, your  ancestors  and  mine,  under  the  Stew- 
arts. Not  until  our  own  times,  your  times  and 
mine,  did  we  see  a  parallel  awakening  in  the 
Scientific  Spirit. 

May  I  in  conclusion  say  again  in  the  son- 
orous prose  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  age  there  is 
now  as  then  "a  new  unexplored  Kingdom  of 
Knowledge  within  the  reach  and  grasp  of  man, 
if  he  will  be  humble  enough,  and  patient 
enough,  and  truthful  enough  to  occupy  it." 


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